I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear this news until I heard it and squeed with the intensity of a thousand suns. We already knew that Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s comic series The Umbrella Academy is getting the live-action treatment over at Netflix. Today, we learned that one of its most fascinating characters has been cast!
As reported by Birth.Movies.Death, Ellen Page will be taking on the role of Vanya Hargreeves, A.K.A. #00.07 The White Violin. She’s the one who, when she was a child, was told she had no powers when they were being actually being suppressed by The Monacle, because he knew that she was the most powerful of all his superpowered adoptive children. Vanya eventually fashions herself into The White Violin, who could basically destroy the world with a single note played on her violin.
I think Page is an amazing choice for this part, as Vanya requires a slow build from sheltered naif with a low self-esteem to a ferocious powerhouse driven mad by her own power, and Page could capture both ends of that spectrum with ease. My hope, too, is that the Netflix series will explore with more nuance what the comic series never got around to doing: The White Violin truly reclaiming her own power that was both given and taken away by two men and stifled by her adoptive siblings. Page’s White Violin would be one that I’d be interested in following on that journey.
While there’s no premiere date or even time frame officially set yet, BMD reports that Netflix is potentially looking at 2018. Fargo‘s Steve Blackman will serve as EP and showrunner, and they already have a pilot script by Jeremy Slater (The Exorcist). Now, all Netflix needs to do is get some women in that writer’s room and in the director’s chair. The White Violin and The Rumor need to be handled carefully if they’re going to be done well. Don’t screw this up, Netflix!
(image: screencap)
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