Apple has given a straight-to-series order to a comedy based on the life of American poet Emily Dickinson, with Academy Award-nominated actress Hailee Steinfeld (Pitch Perfect 3, True Grit) being attached to play the lead role in the project. The series will be written by Alena Smith (The Affair, The Newsroom) and directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Vice Principals).
Officially titled Dickinson, the series will “take viewers into the world of Dickinson and explore the constraints of society, gender, and family from the perspective of a budding writer who doesn’t fit into her own time through her imaginative point of view. ” It will be set in in the 1800s but should have “modern sensibility and tone.”
Emily Dickinson is considered to be one of the greatest poets in the history of American literature. She has written nearly 1,800 poems, but only several of them were published during her lifetime. After Emily’s death in 1886, her younger sister Lavinia discovered her poems collection and introduced them to the rest of the world.
This will be first television lead role for Hailee Steinfeld after she previously guest-starred in comedies Back to You and Sons of Tucson. Besides Dickinson, Steinfeld’s other future projects include starring in Transformers‘ spinoff Bumblebee: The Movie and working on her debut music album.
