Main Image: Renan Katayama, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ONE
In an interview with Dazed & Confused magazine in 2000, Kate Moss said she had an enduring ambition to be painted by Lucian Freud. He heard about it, approached her and the rest is… film gold.
TWO
A biopic about their relationship, with Moss as executive producer, is now underway. It will dramatise her nude sittings with Freud, which took place in 2002, over the nine months that she was pregnant with her daughter Lila.
THREE
The Oscar-winning director James Lucas is shooting the movie, which is being made in collaboration with Lucian Freud’s estate. Moss says: ‘I knew that James would convey the emotion in the storytelling in a fitting way, one this memoir deserves.’
FOUR
The movie will be fascinatingly revelatory for all fans of art and fashion. Lucas says: ‘[Moss & Freud] allows our diverse audience to take a look behind the curtain and see, truthfully, what makes these cultural titans tick.’
FIVE
Ellie Bamber is playing the supermodel.
SIX
Derek Jacobi is playing the painter, who died in 2011.
SEVEN
Lucas wrote the screenplay in Freud’s studio, with ‘the scent of his oil paint still lingering in the air’.
EIGHT
Moss is hands-on in her producing role. She says: ‘As this is such a personal story of mine, it has been essential that I be involved with James in all aspects as the project has developed.
‘I am thrilled by the recent casting and excited that the film will begin shooting soon. I cannot wait to see it.’
Image: procsilas, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
NINE
The biopic will shine a light on the quirks of Freud’s personality. For instance, he was a stickler for punctuality. ‘If I was five minutes late, he would kick off,’ Moss recalls.
TEN
Fun fact: neither Moss nor Freud much liked the painting, which was called Naked Portrait 2002 and sold at Christie’s to an unknown telephone bidder for £3.5million.
By Becky Ladenburg
February 2023
