Something about working with Leonardo DiCaprio must make director Martin Scorsese feel so young. According to Variety, Scorsese is planning a seventh movie collaboration with his frequent muse -- a biopic of the Chairman of the Board, crooner Frank Sinatra.
While details are scant, the report that Jennifer Lawrence is the other name tied to the project -- to portray actress Ava Gardner, Sinatra's second wife -- suggests that the film may focus on the 1950s. (Sinatra and Gardner's affair became public in February 1950, they married in 1951, they separated in 1953, she filed for divorce in 1954, and the divorce was finalized in 1957.)
During this timeframe, Sinatra was in his late thirties, which, when this biopic project was originally floated more than a decade ago, DiCaprio was the appropriate age. Now, the Killers of the Flower Moon actor will be in his fifties before filming gets underway. Still, the Oscar winner is both a dramatic and comedic chameleon, and his general 'vibe' seems like a good fit to embody the rakish, charming singer. In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, DiCaprio said that timing for a Sinatra film was in Scorsese's hands, but that he was "always incredibly game for anything [Scorsese] decides to do."
While we wait to see if DiCaprio actually ends up portraying Ol' Blue Eyes onscreen, here's a look at some other biopic castings that really nailed the vibe of the original artist -- and a few who missed the mark.
Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury
There's a reason Rami Malek won a Best Actor Oscar portraying the flamboyant Queen frontman in 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody. The overbite prosthesis helped, but Malek's theatrical preening and live piano and guitar playing were so spot on that during the key Live Aid concert scene, real footage of Mercury's 1985 performance was used on the Jumbotron.
Chadwick Boseman as James Brown
Chadwick Boseman didn't want to be typecast as just a biopic actor -- he'd already played baseball great Jackie Robinson in 2013's 42 and would go on to portray Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 2017's Marshall -- but when the chance came to put on his dancing shoes as the Godfather of Soul, he committed fully. The 2014 movie Get On Up had Boseman covering decades-worth of James Brown lore, from his start as a 17-year-old looking for a break to his heyday in the '60s and '70s as the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness, to his decline and legal troubles in the 1980s and '90s.
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley
When the blue-eyed blond Austin Butler was cast as Elvis in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 biopic, many wondered if he could pull it off. Forget the fact that Elvis himself was a blue-eyed blond who dyed his pompadoured 'do, Butler committed to the King's vocal depth and ticks so thoroughly that he needed a dialect coach to help him lose the accent after filming.
Jennifer Lopez as Selena
This 1997 biopic of the 23-year-old Tejano superstar who had been killed just two years previously put Jennifer Lopez on the map as both an actress and a singer. And though many in the Mexican-American community did not approve of Lopez's casting (J.Lo is of Puerto Rican descent), Selena's father told Oprah that the actress did "an excellent job of capturing Selena's personality and her spirit."
Taron Egerton as Elton John
The 2019 Elton John biopic featured a star turn by Taron Egerton, who picked up a Golden Globe for his performance in Rocketman. The actor learned how to play piano just for the role, and used his own live vocals instead of lip-syncing to John. Following the universal acclaim for his take on the iconic musician, Elton John selected Egerton to narrate his autobiography, further cementing him as the quintessential interpreter.
Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland
Seventeen years after her Golden Globe-winning performance in 2002's Chicago, Zellweger returned to the movie musical format to play the genre's biggest star: Judy Garland. Her Oscar-winning performance in 2019's Judy was a heartbreaking portrayal of the icon's final year, coupled with a look into her past. Following doubt from the general public, Zellweger proved her musical chops by using her own vocals to sing some of Garland's greatest hits, including "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "The Man That Got Away," and "By Myself."
Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin
A biopic on the "Splish Splash" and "Dream Lover" crooner was announced in 1999, and recent Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey acquired the film rights and wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the eventual 2004 movie Beyond the Sea. Spacey, who had loved Darin since he was a child, worked hard to give an empathetic portrayal, but the film was panned as a vanity project, and one that didn't work on a crucial point: age. Spacey was 45 when he played Darin as a 20-something teen idol.
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