Emilia Clarke to star as Oscar Wilde’s wife in ‘An Ideal Wife’

Hollywood star Emilia Clarke is set to star as Irish author Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance Lloyd in filmmaker Sophie Hyde’s upcoming film An Ideal Wife.

According to Deadline, the film charts the story of Wilde’s marriage to Lloyd, an author and activist, and the sexual awakening she experienced after learning that Wilde was homosexual.

Lloyd died in 1898 at the age of 40 while living in exile in Genoa, Italy, with her two sons. They had left London and changed their surname to Holland to distance them from the scandal of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for homosexual acts in 1895.

During her life, Lloyd published two books of children’s literature and contributed to newspapers and journals. She was also a campaigner in the progressive dress reform movement.

An Ideal Wife is produced by Olivier Delbosc through Paris-based Curiosa Films, Chris Curling via Zephyr Films in the U.K. and Matthew Gledhill at Wheelhouse Productions.

The film will mark Clarke’s first big screen credit since the 2019 holiday rom-com Last Christmas directed by Paul Feig. The film starred Clarke alongside Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, and Emma Thompson, who also co-scripted the flick.

Clarke’s upcoming projects include McCarthy, Vaclav Marhoul’s film about the disgraced American senator Joseph McCarthy, in which she will star opposite Michael Shannon.