Have you heard? Daniel Radcliffe is currently shooting the biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story… starring as Weird Al himself. I, a huge Weird Al fan, would be eager for this movie no matter who was playing Al, but Radcliffe has gone almost as weird as the musician himself since his Harry Potter days, so the prospect of him as Al is deliciously tantalizing. I cannot wait to see this. (The film, a Roku Original, will stream exclusively on the Roku Channel; no release date has been announced.)
Which celebrity would you cast as which historical figure in a biopic? The celeb can be still alive or not. Have fun!
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Gong Li – Ching Shih – party dude
Sally Hawkins – Ada Lovelace – does machines
Akira Akbar – Sarah Parker Remond – radical
Alaqua Cox – Sacagawea – cool but rude
Miriam Margolyes – Elizabeth Cady Stanton – leads
After their origin solo pics, they form: The League of Extraordinary Ladies to battle the evil forces of:
Noomi Rapace – Lieserl Einstein – She’s survived and time travelled to the 1800’s to kill dad!
Lucy Lawless – Marie Curie – Radiation gave her superstrength, but drove her mad, Curie Smash!
Frances McDormand – Fanny Crosby – No one can withstand her mind-controlling hymns.
Olivia Colman – Hetty Green – The frugal financier of evil, and…
Mary, Kate, Elizabeth – The Brontë Bunch – their clone army of brooding, melancholy henchwomen.
We need more silly fantasy biopics and fewer dull, predictable hagiographies. Hopefully, The Weird Al biopic is as strange and silly as its subject and star.
I want a miniseries about the life of Chester A. Arthur directed by Martin Scorsese. I’m not joking, our least-remembered president had a fascinating life. It’s the story of an idealistic young lawyer who fights against racism but slowly becomes corrupted by party politics. But after suddenly rising to the highest office he is reminded by letters from a secluded invalid of the man he once was, and turns on the machine that placed him in office with a renewed spirit of reform. This sounds like a Scorsese story and it would be largely set in 19th century New York, a setting he already explored in Gangs of New York. As for who would play Arthur, that I’m less sure of. Ben Affleck is the first name that comes to mind, he tends to be good at roles where he’s outwardly one thing and another in private. There’d also have to be a lot of age make-up to tell the whole story.