Freida Pinto, the actor best known for her debut film Slumdog Millionaire, is set to star in a limited series Spy Princess based on Shrabani Basu’s book Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan.
Pinto will also serve as the series’ executive producer.
Spy Princess will be written by Olivia Hetreed, who previously co-wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film The Girl with a Pearl Earring. She will also be an executive producer along with Andy Paterson. According to a report by Deadline, Basu will serve as a consultant for the series.
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The series will follow the real-life story of Noor Inayat Khan, who was an Indian-origin British spy during World War II. Khan was sent to Nazi-occupied France as the first female undercover radio operator for Britain’s Special Operations Executive. However, her operations lasted for only six weeks as she was arrested and killed at a concentration camp in Germany at the age of 30.
Along with Pinto and Hetreed, the series will also be produced by Red Room Films’ founder Claire Ingham. It will be directed by Anand Tucker who has directed films like Leap Year and Shopgirl.
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“She was a fierce and amazing woman, the most unlikely heroine of World War 2. Sending women to the front line is controversial even now. Then it was unthinkable… Her struggle to reconcile her values with the desire to find her own path and with her complex sense of duty, is something I am so excited to explore and to recreate,” said Pinto as per Deadline.
Pinto will be the second actor in recent times to portray the British spy. Indian actor Radhika Apte had also played Noor Inayat Khan in Amazon Prime Video’s 2020 drama film A Call to Spy. The film, which follows the story of three women who help take down Nazis during World War 2, premiered on December 11, 2020.
Apart from Spy Princess, Pinto will be seen in The Henna Story, a series based on the best-selling novel The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi.