Adele to make acting debut in new Tom Ford film Cry to Heaven

Adele is to swap music for acting when she makes her film debut in the next movie by former fashion designer Tom Ford.

The singer will appear alongside big names including Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany and Adolescence’s breakthrough star Owen Cooper in Cry to Heaven.

It will be adapted from Anne Rice’s 1982 novel, which is set in the 18th Century world of the “castrati” – male singing stars who were castrated to preserve their high voices.

Ford will direct, produce and write the film, but details of the roles to be played by Adele and the other cast members have not yet been revealed.

The book follows the story of two castrati who become successful opera singers in Venice and whose lives are intertwined.

The cast will also include Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Hunter Schafer and Thandiwe Newton, according to US media including Deadline, which first reported the news. A spokesman for Ford has confirmed it to BBC News.

Adele, one of Britain’s most popular music stars, released her last album four years ago and has been largely out of the limelight since she ended a Las Vegas residency a year ago.

She said she was planning to take “a big break” after last year’s run of live shows, and wanted to “do other creative things just for a little while”.

Ford, meanwhile, has been one of the biggest names in fashion, but has also made two highly acclaimed and stylish films – A Single Man, starring Firth and Hoult, in 2009; and Nocturnal Animals, which earned him two Bafta nominations, in 2016.

He sold his self-titled fashion house to Estee Lauder for $2.8bn (£2.4bn) in 2022, before saying he would “say goodbye to fashion” and “spend the next 20 years of my life making films”.

“I loved making the two films that I made. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life,” he told GQ.