When Adele announced plans for a “big break” from music in 2024, the singer told German broadcaster ZDF that she wanted to do “other creative things, just for a little while.” Those plans are coming to fruition. Adele is set to make her acting debut in the upcoming Tom Ford film Cry to Heaven, according to Deadline.
Adele’s Acting Debut
Based on Anne Rice’s 1982 novel of the same name, Cry to Heaven centers on singers Guido and Tonio as they try to succeed in the world of opera in 18th-century Italy. Adele’s role hasn’t been revealed, but the 16-time Grammy winner will star alongside several big names, including Thandiwe Newton and Colin Firth. The cast also includes Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Hunter Schafer, Josephine Thiesen, Théodore Pellerin, Daryl McCormack, Cassian Bilton, Hauk Hannemann, and Lux Pascal.
Ford wrote the screenplay and is reportedly directing and producing through his production company, Fade to Black. The fashion designer-slash-filmmaker has had the project in the works since last year and took his time putting together the right cast before shooting, according to Deadline. Production will kick off in mid-January, and the film is expected to release late next fall.
Adele’s New Direction
Adele previously teased her interest in acting — or at least one specific project — during a Hollywood Reporter interview in December 2023. “There is one movie I want to do, but the guy whose movie it would be, he’s not mentally ready to write the script for it,” she said.
Whether “the guy” to whom she was referring is Ford or not remains unclear. At the time, Adele would give “no clues” as to his identity, but she did share that she’d made him aware of her interest in the project.
“I bug him every now and then about it, but he’s just not there yet,” she said. “But that’s the only role I ever want. Because I think I’d nail it. I think I’d do really, really, really good at it.”
A few months later, Bradley Cooper revealed that he had considered casting Adele in his 2018 remake of A Star Is Born. Speaking at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February 2024, he explained that he’d imagined having his character, Jack, meet a woman while abroad. “I thought about Adele for a while,” he said (via IndieWire). In the end, the idea “never even took off at all.”
The role and timing of Cry to Heaven have aligned better for Adele. Prior to wrapping up her two-year “Weekends with Adele” residency in Las Vegas in November 2024, she told ZDF she didn’t have “any plans for new music at all” and was ready to be creative in other ways.
