Jared Leto will play Andy Warhol in a new biopic.
The actor, recently seen as the Joker in Suicide Squad, will also produce the film, called Warhol, telling the life of the pop art pioneer.
The screenplay comes from Boardwalk Empire creator Terrence Winter, whose credits also include The Wolf of Wall Street and 50 Cent drama Get Rich or Die Tryin’. He will use Victor Bockris’s 1989 book Warhol: The Biography as inspiration, with Leto acquiring rights.
Warhol shot to fame in the 1960s with his unique take on American consumerism and quickly became a fixture in the New York club scene. He was also openly gay at a time when homosexuality wasn’t readily accepted. Amid his success, he suffered from hypochondria and was the victim of an attempted murder in 1968.
He has previously been played by Jared Harris in the 1996 indie I Shot Andy Warhol and John Cameron Mitchell in the recently canceled HBO series Vinyl, also written by Winter.
Leto drew criticism from the LGBT community for being a straight man playing a trans character in Dallas Buyers Club, a role that won him an Oscar. He also recently spoke out about the problems facing gay actors in Hollywood.
“I definitely don’t think a gay leading man would have the same opportunities as a straight leading man,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s offensive or not, but that’s my thought right now. It shouldn’t be that way. This is still a very conservative business.”
Leto was recently added to the cast of Blade Runner 2 alongside Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford and is rumoured to be reprising the role of the Joker in next year’s Justice League.
