Sydney Sweeney cast as lead role in Josie Rourke’s The Custom of the Country
It’s been confirmed that Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney has been cast as Undine Spragg in the upcoming adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel, The Custom of the Country, which is set to be directed by Josie Rourke.
The film will be produced under Studiocanal and Charles Finch’s Rabbitsfootfilms and principal photography is scheduled to start soon.
Director Rourke has described Sydney Sweeney’s role as “the original dangerous woman,” as shared in Deadline. “Edith Wharton’s character has forever fascinated, seduced and infuriated readers.”
Rourke further emphasises how Wharton’s novel took 1913 America by storm “during a time of immense economic and social change”, citing it as the author’s “great American novel”.
The novel tells the story of Spragg, a young woman from the Midwest who strives to build social capital and acceptance in an early 20th century New York City landscape threaded by surface level vanity and cruelty. The narrative sees Spragg, using her armour of conventional beauty and dangerous ambition, utilise relationships, marriage and divorce as building blocks to soar high on the social ladder, falling prey to a heavily consumerist society and subsequently echoing a predator.
Rourke has shared how The Custom of the Country “whistles with modernity” and the journey between penning the adaptation for the big screen and deciding on the final cast.
“…as I was writing this adaptation, Sydney Sweeney lived in my head as this iconic character — it’s as if Wharton sat down a century ago and wrote the role for her,” the filmmaker stated. “I’m thrilled to be working with this luminous actor, Charles Finch, Alison Owen and Studiocanal to bring this novel to the screen.”
Studiocanal will fund the project with Charles Finch, Monumental Pictures and Sweeney herself helping with production.
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