Roger Daltrey gives an update on Keith Moon biopic: “I’m very pleased with the script”
For more than a decade, The Who lead singer Roger Daltrey has been attempting to make a film about his late bandmate, Keith Moon. The legendary drummer led an equally legendary life, filled with debauchery and acts of wild mania that made him infamous as “Moon the Loon”.
During a new interview with the NME, Daltrey claimed that the film is still in its production phase, but vowed that the biopic “will be made”.
“I’m at a draft that’s ready to go to directors,” Daltrey explained. “I’m waiting on a reply from a director that I was talking to prior to starting writing the script. I’m very pleased with the script, it will be made. As soon as soon as he’s finished the film that he’s on, he will read it and I’ll get a reply from him. Hopefully we’ll get it made ASAP.”
In case you’re wondering, Daltrey isn’t just talking about some random screenwriter submitting his work for band approval. Daltrey had previously revealed that he was writing (or more likely co-writing) the film’s script himself. There are also reports that he and fellow Who bandmate Pete Townshend are serving as executive producers on the upcoming film that has been gestating for years.
“It’s a tricky one, and it’s taken me a long, long time,” Daltrey said. “A myriad of writers came up with failed scripts to finally make me sit down and write the kind of story I had in my head of how to tell a story that engages people, that really does expose the full Moon.”
“He was flawed, like we all are,” Daltrey reminisced. “But he was wonderful and he was an absolute uncontrolled genius. And people like him are greatly missed in life today, because life is so full of fucking mediocrity, it’s unbelievable.”
Previously, Daltrey had revealed that Mike Myers had originally been in talks to star as Moon back when the film was first getting off the ground. Once production got delayed multiple times, Myers was out, but the involvement of Austin Powers himself was what originally got Daltrey interested in taking the reigns of Moon’s story.
“I got involved when Mike Myers wanted to play him,” Daltrey previously claimed. “We were trying to get the film off the ground. I think Mike, when he was younger, would’ve made a fabulous Keith. It’s a shame it never happened. I’m driven by this project. It came to me in a dream 30 years ago.”
Daltrey says he has an actor in his head, but he’s remained mum on the details. “I’ve got an actor in mind who’s a role model. He might be too old, but then again, Keith looked 50 when he died. He was 32, but he looked 54,” Daltrey said. “I think the actor is about 40 now. I don’t want to jinx it and say his name. But there’s an actor who I’ve seen and when I look at him I go, ‘God, it’s Moon.’ It’s all to do with the eyes. The eyes are all important. You virtually wouldn’t need to say any dialogue because you could read it in his eyes. I mean, that’s a bit much, but you know what I mean. You can read so much in the face of Keith. He had such an incredible vibrancy.”
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