Qualley and Carpenter Join Holland's Fred Astaire Biopic
Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter have joined Tom Holland in Sony's untitled Fred Astaire biopic.
Deadline first reported the double casting in an exclusive published on 25 September 2026 Deadline. Qualley will star as Adele Astaire. Carpenter will star as Ginger Rogers.
Holland will portray Fred Astaire himself, the dancer whose life the film follows Deadline. The film will be directed by Paul King. A biopic is a drama built around a real person, with actors playing figures who actually lived.
The script was written by Steven Levenson and Paul King Deadline. It is based on the book The Astaires: Fred & Adele by Kathleen Riley. Books of this kind are often optioned by studios, which means the studio buys the right to turn the story into a film.
Adele Astaire was Fred's older sister and Broadway partner The Hollywood Reporter. Broadway is the New York theatre district known for large stage musicals. The sister and brother danced together there before his screen career. That early partnership is the focus suggested by the book's title.
Ginger Rogers was a frequent film co-star of Fred Astaire The Hollywood Reporter. A co-star is a leading actor who appears opposite the main star. Rogers and Astaire made a run of Hollywood song-and-dance pictures together. Her role in the story picks up where the Broadway years leave off.
Behind the camera, the producing team is now set. Amy Pascal and Rachel O'Connor are producing the film The Hollywood Reporter. Holland is also producing on behalf of Billy17, his own production label. Ben Holden and Josh Hyams are producing for Lightbulb Pictures.
A producer helps organise a film from script to screen, from hiring to budget control. A Sony project means the film sits with Sony Pictures, one of the five major Hollywood studios. No release date has been announced.
For fans, this means two famous partnerships will share one film. One is the brother-and-sister stage act that started it all. The other is the much-loved screen pairing with Rogers that followed in Hollywood.
