Audrey Hepburn’s son Sean responds to news of Rooney Mara playing his mother in a new biopic

‘Rooney is a delight,’ said Sean Hepburn Ferrer

Audrey Hepburn’s son has given Rooney Mara the seal of approval, after it was announced she has been cast to play his mother in a new biopic.

A film about the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany’s actor is in the works at Apple, with Oscar-nominated director Luca Guadagnino attached to the project. Mara, 36, will star as Hepburn and produce the movie.

“I was not aware of the project,” Sean Hepburn Ferrer told Fox News on Friday (7 January) when he was contacted about the project. “Rooney is a delight. Sounds like there is a lot of love there.”

Hepburn, who died aged 63 in 1993 from cancer, is adored around the world for her performances in Fifties and Sixties films such as Roman Holiday, Sabrina and My Fair Lady.

The screen star won an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for Roman Holiday, in which she played a princess who travels to see Rome on her own. Gregory Peck starred opposite her as a reporter.

During the later years of her life, Hepburn travelled the world to raise money and awareness for UNICEF. She worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and Asia.

Rooney Mara, Audrey Hepburn (Shutterstock)

Mara was Oscar-nominated for her role in Todd Haynes’s haunting romance Carol, and also starred in David Fincher’s remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lion, and Mary Magdalene.

The film will be written by Michael Mitnick, who previously collaborated with Call Me By Your Name director Guadagnino on the 2019 short The Staggering Girl.