The actor Dolly Parton wants to play her in a biopic: “She’s just absolutely fantastic”
If there’s one genre that Hollywood can never seem to get enough of, it’s the biopic. Pioneering filmmaker Georges Méliès made what is deemed to be the first back in 1900 when he delivered the ten-minute-long Joan of Arc, but since then, the genre has morphed into something entirely different.
As cinema has evolved, we’ve moved from interesting biopics about historical figures into a realm of Oscar-baiting stories about iconic musicians, actors, and athletes, even those who have already been well-documented by real footage. It’s become a divisive genre, not least because Hollywood so often takes liberties, exploiting its subjects with fabrication or over-exaggeration for the sake of making a good movie.
In recent years, biopics like Back to Black about Amy Winehouse or Blonde about Marilyn Monroe have marked a significant dip in quality in the genre. Studios know they can make a quick profit from fans, and the invariably controversial reception will lead even more audiences to flock to the cinema to see what all the fuss is about.
But in doing so, ethics are inevitably forgotten. Back to Black and Blonde reduced their subjects down to nothing but their pain and their trauma, refusing to paint portraits of Amy and Marilyn that were actually multi-dimensional. They were both utterly disappointing.
That’s the problem with making a movie about someone who is no longer alive – they don’t have a say in how they’re depicted, but Dolly Parton, who is still performing at the age of 80, is keen to make a feature film about her life, presumably one with a much bigger budget and a more star-studded cast than the made-for-TV movie Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors, which debuted on NBC in 2015.
Rather, under her own supervision, she’d love to tell her story, focusing on key elements of her childhood, early career days, and the height of her fame – appearing on Nashville Talks in 2022, Parton revealed, “We were talking about doing my Broadway musical, and we were really, really far out ahead of that… Then Covid hit, and that changed my mind about a whole lot of things…”
“I do intend someday to be on Broadway, but I’m thinking now that I might do my life story as a feature.”
Dolly Parton
Since then, Parton has actually made the Broadway dream a reality, with Dolly: A True Original Musical, first premiering in Nashville in 2025, with its Broadway debut coming later this year. She’s yet to assemble a cast and crew to turn it into a feature, but if it’s a success on Broadway (and I’ve no doubt it will be), then it’ll surely get the silver screen treatment in no time.
When it comes to casting the ideal Dolly, the singer sees potential in a certain Wicked star. “Maybe, possibly even a musical feature, so we’re in talks about that. I love Kristin Chenoweth. She’s just absolutely fantastic. We’d probably have to have a little Dolly, a middle Dolly and then the older one,” she said.
Chenoweth is best known for originating the role of Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked, but with experience singing across genres like gospel and country, it’s not hard to imagine the Oklahoma-born performer stepping into the role of Parton… Maybe one day.
