British actress Bel Powley has signed on to play the female lead in Pete Davidson’s untitled comedy from director Judd Apatow.
Universal has given the project a prime summer release date of June 19, 2020. The film, described as “semi-autobigraphical,” is written by Apatow, Davidson, and Dave Sirus.
Davidson, who grew up in Staten Island, lost his firefighter father in the Sept. 11 attacks, started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 16, and joined the cast of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in 2014 at age 20. Davidson’s coming-of-age film “Big Time Adolescence” premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival.
Apatow will produce the pic for his Apatow Productions alongside Barry Mendel. They share producing credits on “The Big Sick,” “Bridesmaids,” “This Is 40,” “Trainwreck,” and “Funny People.” Production will be starting this summer in New York City.
Powley won a Gotham Award for her feature debut in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” Her credits include “White Boy Rick” opposite Matthew McConaughey. She is starring opposite Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston in Apple’s upcoming “The Morning Show.” Powley also stars opposite Paddy Considine in the BBC/Amazon spy series “Informer.”
Powley is represented by UTA, Curtis Brown, Authentic Management, and Jackoway Austen. The news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.