Some details on the status of Barbra Streisand’s “Gypsy” – will the movie be made?

I’m dying to see Barbra Streisand star in a new version of Gypsy.

The project has been discussed for more than three years now and I was getting the feeling this might not ever happen.

But the hiring last summer of Richard LaGravenese to adapt the musical was an excellent sign that things were still on track.

LaGravenese is the writer-director of the new musical film The Last Five Years starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick. While chatting with him about that film, Queerty’s Jeremy Kinser deftly got some questions in about Gypsy too.

Here is an excerpt:

know I speak for a lot of musical buffs by saying I couldn’t be more excited that you’re working on the screenplay of Gypsy for Barbra Streisand. What’s the current status of this project?

I finished it before Christmas. Barbra and I worked on it from September through the fall. I had the best time with her. I can’t even tell you. It was like a fantasy come true. I did my first draft and went to her house to do rewrites. She’s so meticulous in the best possible way. We went through it page by page by page. I played Herbie and she played Rose. I’d play Louise and she’d play Rose. We laughed and had the best time together. I hope it gets made because having her sing that score and play that part would be the penultimate moment for those of us who love that musical. She’s just extraordinary to work with. She cares so much. She’s so passionate about it. She’s so smart. We had such a great time.

I hope it gets made, too, because it will be a religious experience for her fans and in some ways it could be considered a bookend to her film debut in Funny Girl.

The script is at the studio. Joel Silver is a very tenacious producer. I hear that he’s going to make sure this happens.

There’s been some concern that Barbra is in her early 70s and will be playing the mother of a very young girl in the early scenes of the film. How does your script address this?

I think it’s more about her singing that score. She’s an actress and it’s a movie. When Sarah Bernhardt was in her 70s she was performing younger roles. It doesn’t matter to me. She looks fantastic, first of all. I’m not going to be watching the movie doing math. I just want to hear her do that part. I know she can do it. For those who are going to have that problem, nothing we do is going to help that. They’re going to be out to comment on that. I’d rather have her play the part and sing that score and fuck the rest of it.

treisand may be 72 but she proved in her most recent film The Guilt Trip that she still looks terrific on the big screen and decades younger.

And her most recent concert tour and TV special, Back to Brooklyn, showed that she’s still got the pipes to deliver great showstoppers like Rose’s Turn, Everything’s Coming Up Roses and Some People.

Ethel Merman was the original Mama Rose on Broadway followed by revivals starring Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone.

Merman was passed over for the first feature film version in favor of Rosalind Russell whose biggest numbers were dubbed by Lisa Kirk. Bette Midler played the role in a three-hour TV version for CBS in 1993, was nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe.

Below is video from one of Streisand’s 2012 concerts in which she performs parts of Rose’s Turn and Some People.