Eva Green to play Virginia Woolf in film about lesbian love affair which inspired Orlando

Vita & Virginia is set to tell the story of Woolf's passionate relationship with fellow novelist and poet Vita Sackville-West

Eva Green is undeniably one of the most under-served actors currently working in Hollywood.

Always a stand-out favourite, she's largely been stuck playing a series of deliciously deranged, cackling villains - but in largely stale projects where the material never really allows her to show the depth she's offered in her lesser known work, from her debut in The Dreamers to 2009's Cracks.

That may be about to change, as Green's finally lined up a slew of projects offering interesting, complex women for her to explore. Already announced are Roman Polanski's Based on a True Story and Euphoria, where she'll star alongside Alicia Vikander.

Yet, Screen International have confirmed Green will also be bringing author Virginia Woolf to life in Vita & Virginia, which tells the story of the passionate love affair Woolf shared with fellow novelist and poet Vita Sackville-West.

The love between these two women, and their mutual admiration for each other's work, went on to inspire Woolf to write Orlando; which documents the adventures of a poet who lives for several centuries, changing sex from man to woman.

Gemma Arterton has been tapped to play Sackville-West; in a female-fronted creative team which sees Chanya Button on directing duties, co-writing with Eileen Atkins, whose stage play the film is based on.

Mike Goodridge, CEO of Protagonist Pictures who are looking to sell the project at the Berlin Film Festival, commented: “We just love this witty and evocative screenplay by Eileen Atkins and Chanya Button. This is a playful and sexual Virginia Woolf, far removed from the gloom often associated with her, and Vita Sackville-West is a vivacious and flamboyant character who dominates high society in London in the 1920s.

“Embodied by the glorious actresses Eva Green and Gemma Arterton and directed by the inspired Chanya, we believe Vita & Virginia will be warmly embraced around the world.”

Button herself added, "The prospect of collaborating with Dame Eileen Atkins, Eva Green and Gemma Arterton in bringing the mercurial passion that Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West shared to life is beyond a privilege. We so often associate women of the past with oppression, bound by the duties of marriage, propriety and domesticity; but what Vita & Virginia offers is an example of a relationship where bold, brilliant women bent these institutions to their will at great personal cost.

“Focusing on the time in 1927-8 during which Woolf wrote Orlando, the novel their relationship inspired, Vita & Virginia will be a visceral love story, a vivid exploration of creativity, and an energised perspective on one of our most iconic writers”.