The BBC are this week gearing up to shoot THE GIRL, a film based on biographer Donald Spoto’s book SPELLBOUND BY BEAUTY which details the ‘complicated’ relationship between director Alfred Hitchcock and actress Tippi Hedren.

The pair met on the set of the filmmaker’s 1963 horror movie THE BIRDS, after Hedren, a fashion model with very little acting experience, was chosen to star in the lead after Hitchcock spotted her in a TV advert. The director developed an ‘unhealthy obsession’ with his leading lady, and a brief affair followed. Things didn’t end well of course, but sadly the strange infatuation continued (and if rumours are true that Hitch gifted Hedren’s daughter – actually actress Melanie Griffith – a doll of her mother in a coffin, it seems he never snapped out of it!).

Sienna Miller (G.I. JOE: RISE OF COBRA) will be portraying Hedren in the film, while Toby Jones (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER) essays Hitchcock. Julian Jarrold (KINKY BOOTS) directs from a screenplay by writer Gwyneth Hughes, who worked closely with Hedren while developing the project .

Expect to see the film later next year.

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