Lily James may see Whitney Wolfe Herd as a trailblazer, but the Bumble founder herself admits she’s still uneasy about being at the centre of Hulu’s new film Swiped.
“I don’t know if I’m going to watch it or not. I’m obviously both terrified and maybe slightly flattered? But I think the strangeness and the fear of it outweigh any flattery,” Herd told CNBC. “Listen, we’ll just see. I guess I have to get some popcorn and stay tuned. But I am honoured that they chose Lily James; she’s a talented actor.”
The biopic, which premiered at TIFF earlier this month before streaming on Hulu, charts Herd’s journey as one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs of her generation. But Herd revealed she had no involvement in its making. “No, I’m not involved in it. Frankly, I was informed about this movie after it was already off to the races. I think they had already written the script and done all these things.”
The idea of being portrayed on screen unsettled her so much that she even tried to stop it. “I even was asking my lawyer two years ago, ‘What do I do? I don’t want a movie about me. Shut it down!’ He was like, ‘There’s nothing you can do. You’re somewhat of a public figure. There’s public information out there; they’re going to do what they’re going to do.’” Herd admitted she still struggles to sit through the trailer. “So, I can’t make it through the whole trailer; it’s too weird for me.”
On the other side, James spoke with enthusiasm about embodying the Bumble boss. “I obviously knew about both apps, Bumble and Tinder, but I had no idea there was this woman right at the kind of epicentre of them, and I was bowled over by her story,” the actress told Deadline at TIFF.
Calling Herd “visionary”, James said the process of researching and portraying her left a lasting impression. “I went down a rabbit hole, obviously, of research and learning everything I could about her, and I’ve found her to be truly inspiring and a trailblazer. It’s been a really meaningful experience getting to kind of step into her shoes and recreate and dramatise this story in our film.”
Interestingly, James had previously suggested she was finished playing real-life figures following her turn as Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy (2022). With Herd, however, she seems to have found another woman whose story compelled her to make an exception.
