Aubrey Plaza is adding a new project to her slate: The actress/producer is set to star as infamous ’90s Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss in biopic “The Heidi Fleiss Story,” IndieWire has confirmed.
Fleiss allegedly ran the “world’s largest high-end prostitution ring” that counted actors, politicians, and other leading men among its clients. Rachel Sennott co-wrote the script with Rachel and Travis Jackson; “The Heidi Fleiss Story” will be “Chambers” creator Leah Rachel’s directorial debut. The critically acclaimed production company Pinky Promise is behind the project. Production will take place in Los Angeles this year.
“The Heidi Fleiss Story” will center on Fleiss’ tabloid reign right before her trial along with a meta component of her attempting to tell her side of the story first. The synopsis reads: “In 1993 Los Angeles, a powerful young woman named Heidi Fleiss is arrested for running the largest high-end prostitution ring in the world. With the unlikely help of an aspiring writer, Jacolyn, who vows to be the one to write ‘The Heidi Fleiss Story,’ Heidi scrambles around LA trying to blackmail and leverage various connections to get the case dropped.”
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Plaza will produce through her Evil Hag Productions banner. Jessamine Burgum and Kara Durrett are producing for Pinky Promise.
Plaza is repped my MGMT, CAA and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.
Pinky Promise was founded in 2020. The award-winning independent production and financing company produced Scarlett Johansson’s recent directorial debut “Eleanor The Great” (in theaters September 26 from Sony Classics and TriStar), as well as “I Don’t Understand You,” Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” and Golden Globe and SAG Award nominated “The Last Showgirl” starring Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis. Pinky Promise is currently in production on Graham Parkes’ “Wishful Thinking” with Lewis Pullman and Maya Hawke.
Pinky Promise founder Burgum told IndieWire that working with first time filmmakers is part of the banner’s mission to spotlight rising talent. When asked what advice she would give to aspiring directors, Burgum said, “There’s a script, there’s the production, and then there’s the post. I’m not the first person to say this nor will I be the last, but I will always reinforce the truth of that statement. […] There’s something to letting the movie in the process tell you what it is. And necessity is the mother of invention. You look at the end product and it’s a result of all the little things that had to go exactly right in order to end up with that thing. And [a] movie is better for it.”
News of the project was first reported by Variety.
