Sex Education star Emma Mackey has landed her next major movie role, and it's a reunion with one of her Barbie co-workers.
The actor has been cast in Greta Gerwig's The Chronicles of Narnia film for Netflix, following their collaboration on Warner Bros' billion-dollar brightly-coloured blockbuster.
She'll be playing the villain Jadis, better known as the White Witch.
Tilda Swinton previously donned the gown and scepter for the role in the 2005-2010 trilogy. Although she just popped up for small appearances in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, she was turning people to stone, ruling with an iron fist, and seducing children with Turkish Delight in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
However, the Netflix-Gerwig Narnia film isn't another go at adapting The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but rather a film version of The Magician's Nephew.
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The novel is the sixth published but first set in the Narnia chronology, and serves as a direct prequel to Wardrobe. CS Lewis wrote it to explain why there's a random lamppost in the middle of a fantasy world.
The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news of Mackey's casting, stated that it was down to Mackey and The Substance's Margaret Qualley for the role in the end. That puts to bed the rumours that Charli XCX was going to play Jadis.
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The publication states that none other than Meryl Streep is in talks to provide the voice of Aslan, and that Netflix will not only be giving the film a two-week cinema release before it hits streaming, but it will also hit IMAX screens.
Mackey has multiple projects in various stages of the pipeline, including an LGBTQ+ romance, political comedy Ella McCay, and a JJ Abrams film that also stars Glen Powell and Jenna Ortega.
The new Narnia film currently doesn't have a release window, the previous trilogy is available on Disney+.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
