'Born To Be Blue' will look at the life of Chet Baker.
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, 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).
It's been 20 years since French filmmaker Luc Besson shook up the sci-fi genre with...
Maud is a young folk artist suffering from rheumatoid arthritis but who loves nothing better...
Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are partners. Skilled government agents whose job it...
For Luc Besson's latest foray into the sci-fi stratosphere, he has decided to bring the...
Director Antoine Fuqua brings his usual fascination with violence to this remake of the iconic...
Paul is a loner who travels the west with only his dog and horse for...
Writer-director Robert Budreau takes a stylised approach to this biopic of the legendary jazz artist...
When Chet Baker first made a real name for himself in the music industry he...
A New York comedy with vivid characters and a contrived plot, this feels rather a...
After the murder of her husband, a widow and resident of the town of Rose...
Seymour Bernstein is one of the most influential piano players to grace his generation and...