Ethan Hawke has been cast as the late jazz musician Chet Baker in a movie about the trumpeter’s life. The new biopic Born To Be Blue will start shooting early next year, it was announced by The Hollywood Reporter.

Ethan Hawke
Ethan Hawke, star of Boyhood, will play Chet Baker in the forthcoming biopic Born To Be Blue

Canadian director Robert Budreau, most famous for 2006’s That Beautiful Somewhere, is taking charge of the movie having written the screenplay himself. It will reportedly concern events near the end of Baker’s life when he staged a comeback after years of struggling with drug addiction.

Baker was a sensation on the jazz scene in the early 1950s, being able to both play the trumpet and sing. However, he quickly became hooked on heroin, and his promising career spiralled into a mess of jail sentences and wasted potential. He was frequently known to pawn his instruments to keep himself in his addiction.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Baker did enjoy a period of critical resurgence outside of his native America, playing mostly in Europe and recording albums for obscure jazz labels which, though they aren’t widely available, are considered to be the best of his career. He was discovered dead in his hotel room in Amsterdam in 1988 at the age of 58, with his cause of death determined to be by accidentally inflicted external injuries

More: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is as close to perfect a movie as you’re ever likely to see

Hawke, 43, does bear a believable resemblance to Baker, and should be able to do a convincing job. He’s currently enjoying a mid-career resurgence of sorts, and is widely tipped for an Oscar nomination having been involved in the brilliant Boyhood earlier this year. Born To Be Blue will co-star Callum Keith Rennie (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Carmen Ejogo (The Purge: Anarchy).