Is Olivia Nuzzi Writing a Screenplay? Sydney Sweeney, Your Dream Role Awaits

Maybe you’ve heard the rumors? That Olivia Nuzzi is shopping around a screenplay based on her just-published book American Canto? That she’s even floated the idea of starring in it herself?

Well, calm down. They’re not true, at least according to Nuzzi. “No, I’m not doing that,” she flatly tells Rambling Reporter. “I wouldn’t want to watch that movie.”

She might be the only one. 

Since the revelations late last year that the former New York magazinewriter (and, as of earlier this month, ex-Vanity Fair editor) engaged in an X-rated texting dalliance with Robert Kennedy Jr. while covering the 2024 presidential race, the

drama around Nuzzi has only grown dishier. Sure, much of what’s spilled has been disputed — Nuzzi has denied her former fiancé’s accusations of a separate affair with another political figure, former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — but still. It practically screams Hulu limited drama. 

Ironically, Nuzzi anticipated exactly this sort of screenplay chatter in American Canto. “I was trapped within a bad script,” she writes at one point, describing how she felt at the center of a media storm, “as though artificial intelligence had been prompted to write a Lifetime movie in the style of the Coen brothers. Tawdry and farcical and circular.” In fact, as she points out in Canto, some versions of her story already have been adapted for the screen — on Law & Order, which boasts not one but two episodes about journalist-politician scandals (both ending in murder, but that’s another Rambling).

All of which is a roundabout way of wondering who might be cast as the 32-year-old author in a totally hypothetical screen version of her life? Assuming, that is, Nuzzi herself is off the table. Margaret Qualley and Alison Brie instantly spring to mind — both excel at signaling just the right amount of fast-talking restlessness. Or maybe a more prestige pick, like, say, Florence Pugh? 

But let’s be honest. For THR’s money, there’s really only one actress who fully embodies the moment and spirit of the part — and who has experience of her own surviving media storms. Sydney Sweeney, you don’t even need to audition.

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Also in Rambling Reporter:

THR looks into how TikTok is pirating Broadway — and why some producers are loving it. Dick Van Dyke also reveals in his new book that he very nearly played Damien’s dad in the original Omen.

This story appeared in the Dec. 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.