Gossip Girl actor and star of Easy A Penn Badgely has been announced as the lucky young thespian to play the part of Jeff Buckley in a forthcoming feature film. This movie is not, it should be noted, the biopic in the works reported on these pages back in April.
The film in question this time is, according to The Guardian, called Greetings From Tim Buckley, a flick that will revolve around the relationship between Jeff and his father Tim, who died of a drugs overdose at the age of 28 in 1975. The film is set in the days before the famous New York tribute show to Buckley Snr, where Jeff announced his presence as a musical talent in spectacular fashion.The film’s plot is reportedly that Buckley falls for a young woman working at the concert, thus bringing him an understanding of his father’s ways.
Producer Patrick Milling Smith said of the film,”In its purest form this is a father and son story, a rite of passage that is made possible by a romantic journey Jeff finds himself on. We see Jeff accepting who he is to become and laying to rest the ghost of his father while ultimately finding his voice. We had been searching well over a year for an actor that can come close to Jeff’s spirit while also having the serious musical chops required to authentically tell this story. Penn’s audition blew us away and we knew we [had] found our star.”
In a statement, Badgely himself said, “To play a man who was singularly gifted as an artist, greatly misunderstood and mythologised as a human being … It’s something very special and sacred. I’m going to give all I can to this project,”
Directing the project is Dan Algrant.
The other picture is said to be a more straightforward biopic of Buckley, with the lead still yet to be decided. Robert Pattinson, Jared Leto and others are said to be in the running.
That film reportedly has access to most of Jeff Buckley’s music, although Greetings from Tim Buckley does have the rights to most of Buckley Snr’s tunes, as well as Jeff’s Leonard Cohen cover, Hallelujah.