DEADLINE: Maya Hawke & Rhys Ifans Set For Aisling Walsh’s Lucia Joyce Biopic As The Veterans Boards Sales
Maya Hawke is set to play Lucia Joyce opposite Rhys Ifans as her father, the Irish writer James Joyce, in Aisling Walsh’s psychological drama biopic Lucia, which was written by Michael Kinirons.
The Veterans have boarded sales on the feature for a Cannes market launch.
The biopic is based on the life of Lucia Joyce, the talented but troubled daughter of James Joyce, who was briefly the lover of Samuel Beckett.
Hawke has amassed a veteran’s resume as an actor in less than a decade, working with auteurs such as Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, and Gia Coppola, while also starring in Netflix’s TV show Stranger Things. Her other credits include Inside Out 2 (as the voice of Anxiety), Wildcat, which she starred in and co-produced, Maestro, The Good Lord Bird, Little Women, and more.
Ifans was seen most recently in Inheritance and House of the Dragon with other credits including Notting Hill, the Harry Potter Saga and The Boat that Rocked.
They will be joined in the cast by Eileen Walsh in the role of Nora Barnacle.
Born in Trieste in 1907, as the second child of Ulysses writer Joyce and Nora Barnacle (later Nora Joyce), Lucia Joyce spent her early childhood in the cosmopolitan port city as well as Zurich, before the family moved to Paris in 1920, where she pursued her dream of becoming a dancer.
The feature follows Lucia as she struggles to fulfil her personal ambition to become a professional dancer, while navigating her complex relationship with her father as his muse and confidant.
Walsh has a track record in exploring the lives of artists and writers, with films such as the 2014 Bafta-nominated work A Poet in New York, starring Tom Hollander as Dylan Thomas, and Maudie, starring Sally Hawkins as Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis, opposite Ethan Hawke as her husband.
Her other feature credits include Joyriders and Song for A Raggy Boy, while more recently she made BBC-backed TV dramas Miss Austen, the critically acclaimed adaptation of Gill Hornby’s novel, and Elizabeth is Missing, for which Glenda Jackson won a Best Leading Actress Bafta.
Walsh’s directing credits also include the Bafta-winning miniseries Room at the Top; Wallander starring Kenneth Brannagh, for which he won a Best Actor Bafta, and for which Walsh was nominated for Best Direction at the Bafta and Emmys.
Casting is by Amy Kate Dolan (The Pope’s Exorcist, Juliet and Romeo, Costiera). The film is developed and produced by John Kelleher Media and EZ Films (Ireland) with the support of Screen Ireland.
https://deadline.com/2025/05/maya-hawke-rhys-ifans-aisling-walshs-lucia-joyce-veterans-1236381024/
