Jared Leto is going haute couture once more. Women’s Wear Daily reports that the House of Gucci star will portray Karl Lagerfeld in a biopic about the life and times of the controversial German fashion designer, who died in 2019.

Lagerfeld’s fashion house has already endorsed the project, which is reportedly still in early stages. Leto will also produce the biopic alongside Emma Ludbrook via their production company, Paradox. Pier Paolo Righi, CEO of the Karl Lagerfeld house since 2011; Caroline Lebar, senior vice president of image and communications at Karl Lagerfeld; and Sébastien Jondeau, Lagerfeld’s personal assistant and bodyguard of about 20 years, will also serve as executive producers on the film, per WWD. As of now, no director is attached to the project. 

“Karl has always been an inspiration to me,” Leto said in a statement, per Deadline. “He was a true polymath, an artist, an innovator, a leader and, most importantly, a kind man. When we came together with the Karl Lagerfeld team, we immediately shared a creative vision of doing a respectful ode to Karl while pushing the artistic boundaries of what a biopic can be. I’m so grateful to Karo, Pier and Seb for allowing us to go on this journey together.”

Lagerfeld died in February 2019 at age 85 from complications stemming from pancreatic cancer. The creative director for Chanel, Fendi, and his own eponymous label, as well as other brands in his prolific career, Lagerfeld was one of the most celebrated fashion designers of his time. He was also a controversial figure in the fashion industry, accused of being fat-phobic, Islamophobic, and critical of the #MeToo movement. In an interview with German magazine Focus in 2009, Lagerfeld said, “No one wants to see curvy women,” one of many comments he made disparaging women’s bodies over the course of his five-decade-plus career. In a 2017 television interview on a French talk show, Lagerfeld said that Germany’s acceptance of Muslim refugees was an “affront” to Jewish Holocaust victims. In 2018, Lagerfeld said he was “fed up” with the #MeToo movement, saying, “if you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model.”

Last week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that the theme of the 2023 Met Gala, and the corresponding Costume Institute special exhibit, would be “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty,” sparking some backlash from actor Jameela Jamil, among others. Vanity Fair has reached out to the Met for comment.

The biopic’s exact plot remains under wraps, though Leto told WWD that it will focus on Lagerfeld’s network of friends and collaborators: “Karl had a career that spanned 50-plus years so both personally and professionally he was close to a number of people. I can say we are going to home in on key relationships that convey different parts of his life.”