The next biopic-doing-something-slightly-different-than-other-biopics-because-biopics-are-tired is called Steven. As the name of this music biopic suggests, it’s something of an origin story of The Smiths singer/solo artist/vegan, Steven Patrick Morrissey, who’d ultimately of course end up becoming, simply, Morrissey. And today, Steven announced it has its Steven.
The actor who’ll carry the burden of embodying an icon before he was iconic is War and Peace‘s Jack Lowden (who played Nikolai Rostov in the recent series). Lowden spoke to the Daily Mail about the role, saying:
He came from a working-class background, and felt out of place there. He did a whole bunch of jobs while he figured out who he was. He wanted to get out and escape into that explosion of music that was in Manchester around that time. It was exhilarating, and everyone was trying to find their place.
The biopic will allegedly follow the pre-celebrity through the 70s until he begins his career as a to-be-famous person who abandons the Steven-name and embodies the Morrissey persona with which we’re familiar. The film’s writer/director, Mark Gill (who directed the Oscar nominated short, The Voorman Problem) is beginning shooting in April on location in Manchester.
Lowden is a renowned London stage actor, and starred alongside Lesley Manville in the Almeida theatre’s gorgeous production of Ghosts. Watch a clip from that production, via The Guardian: