William Hurt to Play Gregg Allman in ‘Midnight Rider’ Biopic
William Hurt has been cast as the present-day version of Gregg Allman in the upcoming biopic Midnight Rider, Variety reports. The actor, who won an Oscar for his role in 1985’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, is joining a cast that already includes All American Rejects singer Tyson Ritter, who plays Allman as a young man, and Wyatt Russell as his brother Duane Allman.
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The film, which begins production in February in Savannah, Georgia, is based on Gregg Allman’s biography, My Cross to Bear, which he wrote with Alan Light. Allman is serving as executive director on the film, and in a recent interview with Rolling Stone, he noted that he has veto rights on the script and is working hard to ensure that the film gets the story right.
“The first script they handed me just wasn’t us,” he said. “They had me and [Duane] talking at one point and it was too many ‘fuck you’s’ in there and there shouldn’t have been any. But they’re working on it, and it’ll be changed as we go along.”
The Allman Brothers Band are celebrating their 45th anniversary this year with a 10-show residency at New York’s Beacon Theatre in March, and Allman said there was a chance that the band could soon be making their first studio album in a decade. “I would love to see that, especially if it came out real, real good. I just gotta wave some songs at them.” Allman is also at work on two solo albums and will be hitting Atlanta this Friday for the tribute concert “All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs and Voice of Gregg Allman.”