Classic Rock
Pete Townshend talks talks about upcoming Keith Moon movie
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend talked in an interview with Rolling Stone about the upcoming biographical movie of the band’s late drummer Keith Moon, project that according to the guitarist, the vocalist Roger Daltrey is involved. According to Variety the movie will be directed by Paul Whittington (“The Crown,” “White House Farm”) with a script from prolific British screenwriter Jeff Pope, who was Oscar-nominated for “Philomena.” The shooting is set to begin in June but there still no actors chosen.
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Pete Townshend talks talks about upcoming Keith Moon movie
“Bring it up with Roger. He’ll know more about it than I do. But it’s Spitfire films. They are the producers. I’m working with them on a few other things. It looks like it will probably happen soon. When you talk about it as a Keith Moon biopic, it’s going to be the first semi-fictionalized, dramatized Who story. It will be a Who biopic. Somebody is going to have to play Pete Townshend. I’ve read some very, very varied opinions about what my relationship was like with Keith. I view it one way, and another people view it another way. I certainly was never at war with Keith, but neither was I his puppy.”
“He was a great manipulator, and a great character, a great showman. He brought a lot of joy, but he also brought a lot of hardship and difficulty. I’ve always been honest about that. It will be interesting to see how that evolves. I certainly don’t see a position where if I didn’t like the way the story was being told, I’d block it. But I don’t give a fuck, to be honest. I hope it happens because Roger has been working on it.”
Pete Townshend continued:
“The first script I saw for a Keith Moon film, I was in New York in 1993 working on the Tommy Broadway production. I was sent a script by my friend John Lahr, the writer. It was just OK. I called him up and said, ‘John, where did you get this Who story from?’ He said, ‘From Roger.’ I said, ‘You really need to talk to me. You really need to talk to [our manager] Bill Curbishley. You really need to talk to John Entwistle, you really need to talk to his ex-wife. And you really need to talk to everybody because what you’ve got here is just Roger’s almost fantastical adoration of Keith.’ He’d turned him into a Rock God, in a sense. But how long ago is that? That’s over 25 years.”
In the same conversation Tonwhsend said that he trusts Roger Daltrey for making the project tell the real story and that the singer is someone who would “punch out somebody that said anything even slightly derogatory” about him.
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Besides Pete and Roger, the band will have guitarist/backup singer Simon Townshend (Pete’s younger brother), keyboardist Loren Gold, second keyboardist Emily Marshall, bassist Jon Button, drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr‘s son) and backing vocals by Billy Nicholls, along with orchestra conductor Keith Levenson, principal violinist Katie Jacoby and principal cellist Audrey Snyder.
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