Pop superstar Madonna is personally overseeing auditions for actresses to play her in a biopic.
A roll call of television and film stars are taking part in the audition process, with Oscar nominee and 'Midsommar' star Florence Pugh and 'Ozark' star Julia Garner among those in contention.
Alexa Demie of 'Euphoria' fame, pop star Bebe Rexha, and Australian indie actress Odessa Young are also in the mix, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The audition process is said to be "gruelling" according to a source, with some choreography sessions running as long as 11 hours with Madonna's choreographer.
Successful auditionees are then called in to read dialogue and sing with Madonna herself, who is directing the film and co-writing the screenplay.
The film, which sources indicate ends with her 1990 'Blonde Ambition' tour, will require dancing and singing sequences.
The article states that "after the audition process is over, the would-be star is still looking at months’ worth of intense training ahead of a potential start date"
“You have to be able to do everything,” the source added.
Madonna is taking the unorthodox step of directing her own life because "a bunch of people have tried to write movies about me, but they’re always men," she told Jimmy Fallon last October.
"I read that Universal was doing a script. Like they sent me the script because they wanted my blessing, and I read it,” she said.
“It was the most hideous, superficial crap I’ve ever read.”
“This happened a couple of times and I had to like call people up — call up the heads of studios, call up my agents — threaten them and say that I will stand in front of the building and protest and make everybody’s life a misery if they go through with it, and they still did not take me seriously,”
“So finally I just threw down the gauntlet," she added.
Musical artists taking ownership over their own biopic is nothing new, with Elton John serving as an executive producer on the Oscar-winning 'Rocketman' and Dr. Dre and Ice Cube serving as producers on 'Straight Outta Compton'.
The Madonna film has yet to be given the green light, but the Hollywood Reporter states that Hollywood super-producer Amy Pascal is attached to the project, and the green light is subject to the final script being submitted, a star cast and a budget decided.
