Margot Robbie will star in ‘Queen of the Air’ .
The 26-year-old actress has taken the lead role in the period drama and will play a trapeze artist called Lillian Leitzel who embarks on a tragic love affair with fellow circus performer Alfredo Codona.
Cat Vasko has written the script based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Dean N. Jensen, which tells the life story of the beautiful acrobat born in 1892 in Germany, who moved to the United States in 1910 and met Codona when she joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
The pair became two of the biggest stars in the world in the early 20th century and at 4 foot, 9 inches tall, Lilian’s slight frame allowed her to contort her body into a number of jaw-dropping poses and she was famed for dislocating her own shoulders many times during her act.
Her lover had mastered a move that many others had died trying – the triple somersault.
The pair were passionately in love and had a tempestuous relationship, and though they wed in 1928, Lilian died from injuries sustained from a fall during one of her acts.
The Warner Bros. Pictures adaptation is yet to find a director, but it will be produced by American Sniper’s Andrew Laza.
Robbie’s casting comes hot off the back of her prominent role in DC Comics movie ‘Suicide Squad’ in which she plays villain-turned-hero Harley Quinn, and she recently said she’d like to see the character and The Joker – played by Jared Leto – get their own film because "there’s so much more to do" with the characters.
The Australian screen beauty envisions a movie which has them as lovers spreading chaos, just as they do in the pages of the comic books.
‘The Legend of Tarzan’ star said: "I’m trying to make that happen. Not for anything specifically, but just something – there’s so much more to do."
Margot Robbie to star in Queen of the Air
