Sabrina Carpenter to Play Ginger Rogers in Fred Astaire Biopic

Sabrina Carpenter will play Ginger Rogers opposite Tom Holland's Fred Astaire in a still-untitled biopic directed by Paul King, Deadline reports.

Margaret Qualley joins the cast as Adele Astaire, Fred's older sister, one of his earliest dance partners and a star of Broadway and London's West End in her own right.

King, whose credits include the Paddington films, addressed the project's stakes in a statement. "Fred left a timeless legacy of dance on film, most famously in his collaborations with Ginger Rogers, while Adele's work has been lost to history; indeed, no footage of her dancing survives," he said. "The cinematic challenge of bringing to life these icons of the 20th century is one that I could not imagine without Tom Holland, Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter by my side."

The Astaire-Rogers partnership defined the Hollywood musical of the 1930s, producing a run of films at RKO that remain touchstones of the genre. Adele Astaire's career, by contrast, survives almost entirely without a moving image record — a gap King explicitly frames as part of the film's ambition.

For Carpenter, the casting caps a run of high-profile appearances. Over the past few months she has performed at the Grammys, headlined Coachella and collaborated with Madonna. Earlier this month she won her first Emmy for executive producing and performing in The Muppet Show. Her album Man's Best Friend placed at No. 17 in The 30 Best Pop Albums of 2025.

The film has no announced title or release date. Its box rests on three actors known primarily for pop music and screen acting stepping into roles defined by some of the most closely scrutinized dance performances ever filmed.