Glenn Close Joins Ron Howard’s ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ With Amy Adams

Film based on J.D. Vance’s memoir is set up at Netflix

Glenn Close Headshot

Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close is joining the cast of Ron Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy” at Netflix, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.

Close will star opposite Amy Adams in the film based on J.D. Vance’s best-selling memoir. “Hillbilly Elegy” is a modern exploration of the American dream and three generations of an Appalachian family as told by its youngest member, a Yale Law student forced to return to his hometown. She took home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama for her role in “The Wife” earlier this year.

Vanessa Taylor (“The Shape of Water”) will adapt the screenplay based on Vance’s memoir, and Howard is directing.

The book chronicles Vance’s life growing up poor in the Rust Belt among the working class “hillbillies” and charts his family’s struggle as they navigate through drug addiction and social and economic challenges. Supported by his larger-than-life grandmother, Vance developed an appreciation for education that laid the foundation for him to rise out of poverty and its cultural restraints.

“Hillbilly Elegy” topped the New York Times Best Seller list upon its release in August 2016 and then again in January 2017.

Netflix won a bidding war for the right to finance “Hillbilly Elegy,” which Imagine Entertainment optioned back in April 2017.

Howard, Brian Grazer and Karen Lunder will produce for Imagine Entertainment. Julie Oh and Vance will executive produce.

Close is a seven-time Oscar nominee. She previously worked with Howard on his film “The Paper” from 1994.

She is repped by CAA, MGMT, and Loeb & Loeb.

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