Channel Four has announced the casting for its new film based on the 'Wagatha Christie' case. The drama will star This Is England actress Chanel Cresswell as Coleen Rooney and Harry Potter star Natalia Tena as Rebekah Vardy in the story of Rebekah's famous libel trial against Coleen.
Michael Sheen, who has previously played real-life figures Sir Tony Blair, broadcaster David Frost and Chris Tarrant, will play Coleen's barrister David Sherborne. Chanel, 32, from Nottingham, won Best Supporting Actress at the BAFTA TV Awards 2016 for her performance as Kelly Jenkins in Shane Meadows' series This is England '90.
Natalia, 37, from London, played Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter film series, and the wildling Osha in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Mr Sherborne’s previous clients include Diana, Princess of Wales, Hollywood actor Michael Douglas and model Kate Moss.
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BAFTA Award-winning actor Michael, 53, will portray lawyer to the stars who also represented Johnny Depp in the actor’s 2020 libel claim against the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers. And Rebekah's barrister Hugh Tomlinson will be portrayed by Simon Coury, best known for appearing in The Professor And The Madman. His previous clients include the King, easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou and oligarch Roman Abramovich.
Coleen 's former Manchester United and Everton footballer husband Wayne Rooney will be played by Dion Lloyd. Rebekah's husband, Leicester City player Jamie Vardy will be played by Marci Nagyszokolyai.
This summer Rebekah, 40, lost a libel battle against 36-year-old Coleen over a viral social media post after a High Court judge found it was "substantially true." In the post, Coleen said she had carried out a "sting operation" and accused Vardy of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
Her sleuthing efforts saw her dubbed 'Wagatha Christie' in reference to the popular mystery writer. Channel Four's two-part film, titled Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama, will recreate the “high drama, high stakes High Court defamation case that followed, a case that had a huge impact on the lives of the two women at its heart and catapulted the two sparring legal teams into the spotlight, where much like Rooney and Vardy, their every move in the courtroom was dissected and scrutinised in the press."
The show has been created from the court transcripts and will air later this year. In August, Disney+ confirmed it is creating a three-part documentary series about the court battle with “exclusive access” to Coleen. It had been rumoured that many broadcasters and streaming services were bidding to secure the rights to create a project about the high-profile court case.
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