While many know actor Ralph Fiennes for playing Harry Potter‘s nemesis Lord Voldemort, he has also started directing. One of his post-Harry Potter film projects includes directing an adaptation of The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin.
The nonfiction book tells the story of an affair between Great Expectations author Charles Dickens (pictured, via) and actress Nelly Ternan. According to The Guardian, Abi Morgan wrote the script. The release is set for late 2012, coinciding with Dickens’ 200th birthday.
Here’s more from the article: “Dickens was 45 when he met Ternan, then 18, in 1857. Their relationship remained secret from the public, even after Dickens’s separation from his wife the following year. Ternan travelled with the author for the rest of his life; after his death, she married a man 12 years her junior, having disguised her own age as 23, rather than 37.”
Tomalin has established a career as a journalist and biographer. Besides Dickens, she has also written books profiling Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.