Andy Serkis to painstakingly recreate a lifelike Madame Tussaud for bio series

Jack-of-all-trades Andy Serkis is set to helm a new bio series about woman of wax Madame Tussaud, appropriately titled Madame!. The series will tell the “untold story” of the French artist and entrepreneur who founded the wax museum that became a phenomenon around the world.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show tracks Tussaud from 18th century Paris “during the age of enlightenment and the French Revolution” through the Reign of Terror when she flees to England, founding the famous museum in London 1835. Per a synopsis, the wax worker is depicted as an “extraordinarily pioneering businesswoman [who] built her business from scratch” who sacrificed “relationships with nearly everyone close to her (including her own children), exchanging love for her legacy.”

Serkis, the creator and showrunner of Madame!, will expand his directing repertoire with the series. The prolific actor previously directed the Andrew Garfield vehicle Breathe, Netflix’s Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

In a statement (per THR), Serkis says, “This is no straight-up period drama, it is a hilariously crazy, no holds barred, anarchic, punk caper conjured from the curiously twisted mind of a fabulously post-truth executioner’s daughter! Marie knows one thing very clearly–if you’re going to tell your own life story, make it entertaining, even if you have to make it up, and whatever happens, cut out the boring bits….”

Serkis will produce the show alongside Felicita Films’ Marie Guillaumond. Newen Connect will finance and distribute the project. In his own statement, Newen Connect CEO Rodolphe Buet emphasized Marie Tussaud’s girl-bossiness, calling her a “visionary heroine who shook up conventions in the 18th century and whose journey as a strong independent woman managing to build an empire resonates particularly nowadays.” Who among us can’t relate to relentlessly pursuing success at the cost of all personal relationships? Right, ladies?