Will Sharpe to Direct Film Adaptation of Michelle Zauner's Memoir

As critical success goes, Michelle Zauner has had a tremendous couple of years. 2021 saw the release of Jubilee, the third album from her band Japanese Breakfast along with a memoir, Crying in H Mart. The latter especially became a significant critical and commercial smash, elevating Zauner to the level of the likes of Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen — artists who have found genuine success in multiple artistic disciplines.

It sounds like the next step in Zauner’s creative work will be every bit as zeitgeist-y. As People reports, Will Sharpe will direct the film adaptation of Zauner’s memoir. Sharpe has a similarly wide range of creative interests — he was part of the cast of season two of The White Lotus and co-starred in the BBC/Netflix series Giri/Haji prior to that. He’s also written and directed a number of other projects — most recently the feature film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch.

Sharpe told People that Zauner’s memoir had evoked some of his own childhood memories. “There were lots of things that resonated with me as somebody who is half-Japanese, half-British, spent my childhood in Tokyo,” he said. As of last year, Zauner was working on adapting her own memoir as a screenplay.

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As for what else might be next for Zauner, she’s made some suggestions in recent interviews. In a 2022 conversation for The New York Times Magazine, she hinted that her next literary project might go in a different direction. “My creative life has been so raw and personal that I would like to do something more analytical,” she said. Whatever form that takes, it seems likely that there will an enthusiastic audience awaiting it.