Mimi Leder

The first trailer for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic from Mimi Leder introduces Felicity Jones as the history-making justice.

Felicity Jones, hot off her success as a new member of the Star Wars family last winter, has been lining up a string of new projects recently. She’ll be starring as the swan protagonist of Luca Guadagnino’s Swan Lake, and today brought the news that she’ll be portraying Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the R.B.G. biopic On the Basis of Sex.

The Leftovers finally came to a close on Sunday night with one of the quietest episodes of the series. After three years of chronicling the post-apocalyptic misery of Justin Theroux‘s Kevin Garvey, the series finale pivoted to showcase Nora’s (Carrie Coon) perspective.

If Damon Lindelof is the brain behind the The Leftovers, Mimi Leder is the eye. The executive producer directed some of the show’s must astounding episodes, from Season 1’s brutal “Gladys” to last year’s Season 2 finale that found Justin Theroux’s Kevin Garvey singing karaoke to escape the afterlife. The visual language of the HBO series reached new heights in the second season, and now Leder is helping expand that ever further as the show heads to Australia for its final eight hours.

You don’t have to be a fan of HBO’s The Leftovers to know Mimi Leder is one of the most talented directors working today. (For more proof, just look at the headline of The Ringer’s profile of Leder from earlier today.) An upcoming Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic starring Natalie Portman became all the more exciting when the Deep Impact director was rumored to be attached; what a fantastic trifecta of brilliant women that would be! We won’t have to dream about it any longer though. While discussing the HBO drama, Leder confirmed the biopic will be her next project.

Back in February the rights to Tomb Raider landed at Warner Bros. with the studio tapping Divergent screenwriter Evan Daugherty to help reboot the franchise. And in July we heard rumors that WB and MGM were looking to hire a woman to direct the new Tomb Raider film — specifically that they were seeking a “Michelle MacLaren type” to fill the director’s chair. A new rumor suggests that the studios now have a shortlist of directors which unsurprisingly includes Kathryn Bigelow. Dream big, guys.