Brandon Flynn is stepping into the shoes of the late Hollywood icon James Dean.
On 25 June, it was announced that the 31-year-old talent would portray the A Rebel Without a Cause star in the upcoming biopic Willie and Jimmy Dean.
Flynn is also set to executive produce the film alongside its writer and director, Guy Guido, who’s best known for his 2019 project Madonna and the Breakfast Club.
Willie and Jimmy Dean will be based on author William Bast’s 2006 memoir Surviving James Dean.
In his book, the late TV screenwriter, who passed away in 2015, wrote about meeting Dean at the age of 19 and their subsequent close friendship, which allegedly evolved into a romantic relationship at the start of the actor’s burgeoning film career.
Due to the horrific state of LGBTQIA+ rights in the 1950s, the two kept their purported romance a secret, resulting in Dean getting into public relationships with women and Bast waiting on the sidelines for the day they could be together again.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film takes place between their first encounter as students in the UCLA theatre program and the Giant star’s fatal car crash, which occurred on 30 September 1955.
In addition to Bast and Dean’s relationship dynamic, the project will explore the former coming to terms with his gay identity.
In a statement to the aforementioned news outlet, Guido teased that Willie and Jimmy Dean won’t be a “traditional biopic.”
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“It’s a tender and sometimes tragic story about two young men who found each other in a time and place where being seen – truly seen – came at a cost,” he explained.
“Brandon Flynn brings both the fire and vulnerability this role demands. I couldn’t imagine anyone more perfect to explore and play out the complexities of James Dean.
Flynn echoed similar sentiments in a separate statement, describing the script as a “beautiful attempt at truthfully understanding” who Dean was “not just the icon, but the man.”
“It highlights how Hollywood has historically forced LGBTQ people into performance, even in their personal lives. This story dares to present James Dean as a man with real, complex relationships, and I think there’s power in that truth,” he added.
As of this writing, additional cast members have not been announced.
Flynn initially rose to fame as Justin Foley in Netflix’s young adult drama 13 Reason’s Why (2017-2020).
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Following his four-season run on the Selena Gomez executive-produced series, the young talent went on to appear in Ryan Murphy’s psychological drama Ratched (2020), a prequel to Milǒs Forman’s 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
In 2024, he starred in Apple TV+’s Manhunt, a miniseries that follows Edwin Stanton’s search for Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth, as Edwin Stanton Jr.
Alongside his television feats, Flynn has made waves in the film world, starring in 2022’s Hellraiser and the HBO Max supernatural comedy The Parenting.
Stay tuned for more information about Willie and Jimmy Dean.
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