As the cast of The Drummer starts to fill up, it’ll be interesting to see which actors take on which musicians of the late 70s. The movie is a biopic of the last six years of the life of Beach boys drummer Dennis Wilson’s life, up to his death in 1983.
Aaron Eckhart is already on for the lead role and now Variety reports that Vera Farmiga has joined him as Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie.
While Dennis is generally seen as the dark horse of the Beach Boys, the last few years of his life saw him stepping into the limelight and releasing a solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, in 1977 (Eckhart will apparently record his own versions of songs from that record, and classically trained pianist Farmiga is set to make her own music as well). However he was also battling with drug and alcohol problems and eventually drowned whilst swimming drunk. Much of the joy and pain in his life at the time came from his tumultuous relationship with McVie.
Shooting is set to begin in June, under the direction of Bottle Shock’s Randall Miller. It’ll be interesting to see who else joins the cast before then.