Actor Chadwick Boseman is set to showcase the diversity of his talent as he switches things up to become James Brown in the upcoming biopic Get on Up, and by all accounts he is having fun with it, Entertainment Weekly reports.
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Boseman, who played Jackie Robinson in the film 42, is serving up a completely different game in this new movie, which of course will feature many musical numbers.
"Jackie has left the building; we’ll just say that," director Tate Taylor, who debuted with The Help, said. "Oh, my God, Chad’s having so much fun." According to EW, Taylor has actually made use of Boseman’s own voice for many of the songs and overlaid it with Brown’s voice.
Boseman is being joined by two cast members of The Help: Viola Davis (who will play Brown’s mother) and Octavia Spencer (Brown’s brothel-running aunt). Singer Jill Scott will play his wife, Edie.
Taylor was particularly interested in the Godfather of Soul, despite the number of scripts pitched to him that angled toward the "woman in pain" because of his excellent work on The Help.
"As I dug in and started to discover more about [Brown], the good and the bad, I loved the reasons he was often bad and I loved the reasons he was good," Taylor said. "I love that he would stop at nothing to keep reinventing himself so he could stay current, and as a result he changed music."
According to the New York Post, Mick Jagger and Brian Grazer will also be joining the team as producers. Shooting for the movie is currently happening in Mississippi, with the flick expected to hit theaters Aug. 1.
Read more at Entertainment Weekly and the New York Post.
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