Few filmmakers can resist bringing dramatic stories filled with drug abuse, poverty, blind ambition, rocky relationships, and self-destruction to the screen. It's all the more appealing when the tale is true and set to some of the best-loved music of the past half-century.
It's no wonder that rock 'n' roll biopics are making a comeback. Last week's release of 20th Century Fox's Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the man in black, is just the beginning. Director Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine, Safe) is currently in production on his Bob Dylan pic I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan, starring Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett; rock documentary director Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization) is readying Gospel According to Janis with pop star Pink as Janis Joplin; and biopics about Otis Redding, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, and others have been in the works since the late 1990s.
Big-name actors have also chomped on the bit to play tragic, beloved musicians. Before Jamie Foxx took home this year's lead actor Academy Award for Ray, Val Kilmer played Jim Morrison in The Doors and Elvis in True Romance; Gary Oldman got his first break as Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy; Dennis Quaid took on Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire!; Gary Busey was Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story; Ewan McGregor portrayed a character based on Iggy Pop in Velvet Goldmine; and Jennifer Lopez caught Hollywood's attention as singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in Selena.
Mastering the mannerisms, style, voice, and emotional depth of a real person known to millions comes with its own set of acting challenges. Academy voters and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have rewarded such performances again and again. Bette Midler earned her first Oscar nomination for playing a Janis Joplin-based character in The Rose, and Sissy Spacek won her first Oscar with her portrayal of country diva Loretta Lynn in 1980's Coal Miner's Daughter. Golden Globe nominations have gone to Beverly D'Angelo for playing Patsy Cline in Coal Miner's Daughter and to Kevin Spacey for last year's Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea; Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was nominated for a lead actor Emmy for this year's miniseries Elvis--the fourth telepic to chronicle the King's ups and downs.
But while rock bios tend to thrill critics, they usually leave moviegoers cold. Ray grossed more than $20 million its opening weekend, and Ritchie Valens' life story La Bamba was a sleeper hit in 1987, but Beyond the Sea and Coal Miner's slumped in the theatres, and Elvis' Nielsen ratings were disappointing. However, critics are predicting Phoenix will sweep this year's award season, and Walk the Line made $22.4 million opening weekend, an admirable sum considering its competition was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The first big challenge an actor faces when he or she steps into a famous musician's blue suede shoes is learning how to sing and perform. Phoenix, who had never played the guitar or sung before landing the role of Johnny Cash, spent months learning how to deepen his voice to match Cash's sonorous bass and master Cash's unique guitar style. "Because of all the scenes of him writing songs, it wouldn't work to have me singing the lines while he's writing, and then have his voice come out later onstage," Phoenix told USA Today.
Shane West, who recently completed playing The Germs frontman Darby Crash in What We Do Is Secret, nailed the late punk rocker's singing voice so perfectly that he is now touring with the original band members. The Germs and West recently played L.A.'s Olympic Auditorium and the Congress Theatre in Chicago; they are planning a European tour. The punk rock-loving West says it's a dream come true.
Get Physical
Playing a rocker can even require physical changes. Elijah Wood told The Philadelphia Enquirer he was intimidated upon being cast as Iggy Pop in an upcoming biopic. The actor will have to go through dramatic weight loss to match the singer's skeletal frame at the peak of a heroin addiction. Mike Myers also faces physical transformation to play The Who's original drummer, Keith Moon, in a biopic slated to open in 2007. Myers is 10 years older than Moon was when Moon overdosed on prescription drugs in 1978, and their resemblance is less than uncanny.
Wood and the already frenetic Myers will also have to up their energy levels--and their pain thresholds--to accurately portray their real-life characters. Pop's stage antics in the late '70s included slathering himself with peanut butter, cutting himself with broken glass, and vomiting on the audience--often all at the same time. Moon was less famous for his drumming than for smashing drum kits, wrecking cars, and trashing hotel rooms.
West says imitating Crash's similarly wild onstage behavior was one of the best parts of filming Secret. "It's the first time I've been able to have fun, be in a band, and drink as much as I like before I go onstage," he says with a laugh. It was a bonus that the heroin-fueled Crash, who died in 1980, paid little attention to his own song lyrics onstage. "He never knew what he was saying half the time," says West. "If I wanted to change a line, I could change a line."
An actor may be able to nail the voice, the body, and the stage antics, but will the portrayal please millions of the musician's devoted fans, who doubtless perch at the edges of their theatre seats, ready to analyze every sneer and strum? Waylon Payne, who steals several scenes as young Jerry Lee Lewis in Walk, worries about what Lewis' fans think of his performance.
"I was scared to death to play him, because everybody's going to tell you what they think," Payne says. "I think anybody who's trying to be anybody on camera is just winging it and giving you the best they got."
Aside from fans, actors are pressured to please the subject's family, friends, and sometimes the rock star they're portraying. David Bowie was so incensed at the making of Velvet Goldmine, which was based on the book Stardust: The David Bowie Story, he withheld rights to his songs and insisted that all characters' names be changed. Jerry Lee Lewis famously labeled his biopic Great Balls of Fire "the disaster of the century."
Renée Zellweger--who beat out Brittany Murphy, Melissa Etheridge, and others for the role of Janis Joplin in the yet-to-be-filmed Piece of My Heart--clearly felt the pressure of appeasing Joplin's fans, friends, and family. Zellweger put the film on hiatus a few months after accepting the part and agreeing to serve as one of the film's producers. According to the Internet Movie Database, she said, "Joplin was an extraordinary person. There is a need to be careful with the movie, to make sure it does not become a cliché, because that would be blasphemy.... We have to make sure that the people who knew her are not disappointed."
It's often easiest to learn people's mannerisms, personality, and style by spending time with them, but that option may not be available to those playing rock stars. Phoenix met Cash at a party six months before Cash's death in September 2003, but the actor had yet to be cast in the role. Payne didn't meet Lewis until early this month at a Johnny Cash tribute concert at the Pantages Theatre in L.A. "He looked up at me, and it was like he saw a ghost," Payne says of encountering Lewis, who was sitting with Payne's idol and good friend Kris Kristofferson.
Audiences will soon see Payne as Southern rocker Hank Garland, the influential Nashville guitarist who suffered severe brain damage in an auto accident at age 30. Payne talked with Garland only briefly before Garland died the week before shooting began on the film Crazy.
Throw It Around
West says there were advantages and disadvantages to playing someone who died long ago. "The other actors [in What We Do Is Secret] got to actually sit with the musicians and learn a little bit about their lives, but they thought it was a disadvantage in a way because they were being critiqued," he says, noting that he felt freer to approach Crash as a character, although he did consult frequently with the frontman's mother, sister, friends, and bandmates. "It was one of the most amazing experiences."
Payne and West agree that their respective backgrounds as musicians helped in bringing the lives of other musicians to the screen. The son of singer Sammi Smith--whose "Help Me Make It Through the Night" was a hit in 1970--and Willie Nelson's longtime guitarist Jody Payne, Waylon Payne grew up around country royalty such as his godfather and namesake, Waylon Jennings. Payne also released his own album, The Drifter, through Republic/Universal last year and toured extensively with Shelby Lynne, who plays Cash's mother in Walk.
West was also raised by musicians and plays guitar and sings in his own band, Jonny Was. "I think it helps to have some sort of an experience being in a band or being really into music," he says. He believes his musical ability gave him an edge over co-stars Rick Gonzalez and Noah Segan, who didn't know how to play their characters' instruments. "They ended up doing a very admirable job, but I wouldn't recommend that normally," notes West.
Just like the Killer himself, Payne's advice on how to play a rock star is pure rock 'n' roll: "Fuck it," he says. "Wear tight pants, make sure your hair looks good and your teeth are clean, and go throw it around."