Will Sharpe, of HBO’s “White Lotus,” is pivoting back to the director’s chair.
Sharpe is set to direct the upcoming film adaptation of musician Michelle Zauner’s 2021 memoir “Crying in H Mart.” Sharpe said in a statement to NBC News on Monday that he’s “excited to be back on the other side of the camera.”
“I was a fan of Michelle’s music and found ‘Crying In H Mart’ to be a beautiful, relatable work of light handed honesty,” Sharpe said in a statement.
It was initially announced in 2021 that the memoir, which heavily centers on Zauner’s relationship with her Korean immigrant mother, Chongmi, as they contend with her terminal cancer diagnosis, would be adapted. Zauner, who performs under the name Japanese Breakfast, said in a statement provided to NBC News that she was “relieved” to have added Sharpe to the project.
“It was a daunting task, to find someone I could trust with the retelling of such a personal story,” Zauner said. “Someone who could honor my mother’s character and respect the darkest days of grief, and still make the coming of age of a half-Korean artsy outsider in a small Pacific Northwest hippie town seem real and cool.”
Sharpe, who is best known for his role as tech entrepreneur Ethan in the HBO drama, has had previous directing experience with “Flowers,” a British black comedy-drama.
“I believe his sensitivity, as a director and an actor, and his own personal experience, having grown up between two cultures, will be tremendous assets,” Zauner said, referencing Sharpe’s multiracial Japanese background.
Much of Zauner’s memoir, which expands on her 2018 New Yorker essay of the same name, deals with sensitive subjects, including the cultural tensions within her mixed race family, as well as the grief and mourning that followed her mother’s death. She previously told NBC News that much of the grieving process meant “lamenting having a tough relationship” with her mother.
“I wasn’t a perfect daughter, either, and she was absolutely not a perfect mother,” she said. “But, you know, I don’t think that you would find any mother-daughter relationship that is really like that.”