Olivia Cooke is just on the cusp of breaking out. Even with 2018 featuring two major starring turns for the young actress, with “Thoroughbreds” and “Ready Player One,” Cooke hasn’t yet fully broken into the mainstream. Perhaps the upcoming Amazon series, “Vanity Fair,” will be the project that pushes her over the edge into superstardom.
In the first trailer for the upcoming series, which is about the 400th adaptation of the classic William Makepeace Thackeray novel of the same name, we meet Cooke’s version of Miss Rebecca Sharp, aka Becky Sharp, a young woman trying to make her way in the English society during the Napoleonic Wars.
“Vanity Fair” is being released in the UK by ITV, who is probably best known for period hits like “Downton Abbey” and Victoria.” And the network teamed with the streaming service Hulu for the series “Harlots.” James Strong, of “Broadchurch” fame, directed the series, and it’s produced by Julia Stannard, who recently worked on “War & Peace.” So, there is some serious period street cred behind this adaptation.
As mentioned, the seven-part series stars Cooke, who is probably best known for the two films above, but also starred in horror films “The Quiet Ones” and “Ouija,” as well as the underrated Sundance hit from 2015, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” where she played the titular ill female.
“Vanity Fair” is scheduled to hit Amazon Prime Video on 12/21, just in time for Christmas.
Here’s the synopsis:
In a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having, no one is more determined to climb to the heights of English Society than Miss Rebecca Sharp.