Meryl Streep is in talks to play Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia film, according to reports. According to Nexus Point News, and confirmed by Deadline Streep, 79, is being lined up to star in Netflix’s film, which will be adapted from The Magician’s Nephew – the sixth of CS Lewis Narnia series of novels, but the first in chronological terms.
In the Narnia books, Aslan is a dignified and quasi-omniscient lion, generally seen to be male and usually interpreted as an allegory for Jesus. The Magician’s Nephew centres on two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, who discover the magical world through Digory’s uncle Andrew. Daniel Craig is also in talks for the film, with speculation rising that he will play the uncle. Charli XCX is also in line for a role, rumoured to be Jadis, the White Witch.
The film will be Gerwig’s first since megahit Barbie, which earned over $1.4bn at the global box office. She signed on as part of Netflix’s 2018 optioning of Lewis’s series in 2020; the film will be screened globally in Imax in Thanksgiving 2026 before moving to streaming.
Streep previously appeared in in another of Gerwig’s takes on a classic of children’s literature: the 2019 version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The actor has not appeared on the big screen since her role in 2021’s Don’t Look Up, but is rumoured to be returning to make a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada later this year.
Ronald Pickup and David Suchet are among the actors who have voiced Aslan in celebrated BBC TV and radio productions of The Chronicles of Narnia, while Liam Neeson took the role in the three Narnia films made between 2005 and 2010.
Other films which have reimagined deities as female include Dogma (Alanis Morrissette), The Shack (Octavia Spencer) and the upcoming Jesus Christ Superstar movie (Cynthia Erivo). Meanwhile Whoopi Goldberg has played God twice, in Little Bit of Heaven and It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas.
Source: theguardian.com
