Debbie Harry Says ‘Aftersun’ Director Charlotte Wells Is Developing A Blondie Biopic, She Hopes Florence Pugh Will Star

Biopics covering the lives of musicians have become extremely popular, and there might be a new one on the horizon exploring the life of Blondie and singer Debbie Harry, with “Aftersun‘ writer-director Charlotte Wells developing a feature about the landmark NYC music group (a subject of multiple documentaries over the decades), and Harry is hopeful that British actress Florence Pugh will play her in the potential movie.

In a recent Blondie profile from The Times, Harry, who is now 80 years old (we’re still processing that information), revealed the news of the gestating biopic from Wells. “If it were somebody like Florence Pugh, I would be in heaven,” Harry said of the potential casting. “I just think she’s a great actor, and she could do anything.”

Not a terrible casting suggestion, given that Pugh has a very similar look to Harry in certain projects, and the actress has called playing Harry in a movie a dream role back in 2020 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, as pointed out by Entertainment Weekly.

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“Blondie, just because she’s so cool,” Pugh once said of playing Harry, the namesake of the band.

Blondie, who disbanded in 1982, not only helped usher in the new wave and punk era from the New York City club scene, but they were also one of the early groups bringing this new thing called rap to the masses with their 1979 hit song “Rapture.”

Harry wasn’t just a singer; she would branch out into movies like many of her peers with projects like David Cronenberg‘s “Videodrome,” John Waters‘ original “Hairspray,” appearing as herself in the Jean-Michel Basquiat (another biopic, “Samo Lives,” just wrapped) documentary “Downtown 81,” and in the early 2000s, briefly cameoing in the Jason Schwartzman-led drug addict dramedy “Spun.”

Some of the other high-profile biopics on the horizon that come to mind include one focusing on Madonna, with Julia Garner (“Weapons”) still set to play the iconic material girl. Director Sam Mendes is behind the ambitious Beatles project at Sony Pictures that will cover the different perspectives over four feature films with Harrison Dickinson, Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Joseph Quinn, and Saoirse Ronan among the cast. Next up is “Stringsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” which has Scott Cooper directing Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Stringspring during the making of his “Nebraska” album.

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Anyway, we can’t wait to see if this Blondie move comes together with Wells, even if Pugh doesn’t land the part, easily a director to keep an eye on.