Lars Ulrich jokes about who would play each member of Metallica in a film

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich talked about a possible Metallica biographical movie during an interview with Collider. The musician gave his opinion about other biopics and even joked about who would play the band members on the movie.

When asked about a possible Metallica biographical movie, Lars Ulrich said:

“[Laughs] Yeah, well, they’d need a five-foot-seven, small, balding… I mean, we sort of joke about this all the time. We use to have kind of the standard answer back in the day, just because you’d get asked that every three months in interviews. James Spader would play me, the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz would play Hetfield, and we’d joke about how Carlos Santana would play Kirk [Hammett].

“We had all kinds of fun, but the question would beckon, what time period are we talking? Is it Metallica in their youthful times, or now? There’s so many incredibly talented people out there, and it’s incredible how some actors can just transform. I think what Taron did as Elton John stands out as just being incredible casting, an incredible fit.

“But the biopic thing, I think that’s more of a cautionary tale, which kind of falls in under the whole thing with autobiographies. I’m not sold on the idea. The idea of writing an autobiography I think is challenging because I think you would have to be completely truthful.

He continued, saying:

“And to be 100% truthful, it’s hard to tell the stories without bringing other people into it, and then you sort of get into that whole thing where maybe the protagonist in that particular story wouldn’t want the story told.

“So to me, it’s kind of a dilemma of, these stories deserve the truth if you’re going to talk about them, but at the same time, you can’t take for granted that everybody who’s involved in those stories wants those stories out there. It’s a little bit like you and I take a picture together, and then I put it up on my social media without asking you. So there’s something about that I haven’t quite figured out yet, but obviously, as a creative undertaking, I would love to throw myself out into what Metallica would look like in the medium of film.

“That’s one of the main reasons we did ‘Through the Never’ six or seven years ago [in 2013], but if it’s going to be more of autobiography, I think that’s going to be way more challenging because there’s so many biopics where you kind of sit and roll your eyes.

“I guess somewhere I’m just kind of a stickler for the truth, for some reason, so if you’re not gonna tell the truth, then maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all. That’s where it gets a little complicated for me, but let’s see how it plays out.”