I told you before. And I’m telling you again: If there’s an actor alive today who exudes all the emotional turmoil, confounding complexity, and mystic depth that was Kurt Cobain, it is the tween magnet who did those all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world high school movies.
Can Zac Efron sing? Check. (Could Cobain? Discuss.)
Can Efron play guitar? Doesn’t really matter.
Can he rock a rock tee and jeans? You decide.
Can he brood? Mask pain with a sarcastic grin?
That’s the real question. Can Efron—or anyone else with or without a SAG card—convey soul-deep doubt, desperate ambition, seething anger, and instant likability with a twitch of his mouth? A glacier-cool, sidelong look at the camera?
Hollywood’s creative/financial minds are now seriously noodling this question, because a long-in-the-works Cobain biopic is finally moving forward. Based partially on Charles Cross’ Heavier Than Heaven, a David Benioff-penned script is now in the hands of The Messenger director Oren Moverman. (Courtney Love’s producer credit has not doomed the flick to straight-to-DVD obscurity. Yay!)
This is good. Moverman’s co-written Messenger screenplay has landed an Oscar nom. He also co-wrote the lauded Bob Dylan love letter I’m Not There, so he knows how to respectfully portray a revered artist on film. (Aside: I’m Not There sucked for anyone not intimately educated on Dylan’s oeuvre. A similar treatment of Cobain’s life and work could prove equally sucky—even for the hardiest of Nirvana fans.)
Moverman’s association with Ben Foster—that dude who does crazy so well—puts the actor in obvious contention for the Cobain role. He’s no talent powerhouse like Efron, but he can certainly brood.
My suggestion to Hollywood: Go with a nobody. Anyone we recognize—anyone whose abs make the girls swoon—will not be able to disappear into the role, to become Kurt Cobain.
Or, go with Joe Anderson. Compared to Brad Pitt, he’s a nobody. He can sing (Across the Universe). He’s the right age. And holy shit he looks just like Kurt. He’s even done a movie called The 27 Club. Whoa. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
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