Brandon Flynn leads James Dean biopic on rumoured gay romance

13 Reasons Why star Brandon Flynn has been cast as James Dean in Willie and Jimmy Dean, a biopic about the star’s rumoured gay relationship with William Bast.

Queer star Brandon Flynn has landed the lead role of original Hollywood heartthrob James Dean in Willie and Jimmy Dean; an upcoming biopic which will be based on William Bast’s 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean.

The memoir claims that Bast and Dean became friends and lovers, after meeting as roommates at the University of California, Los Angeles, theatre programme, in the lat 40s/ early 50s.

Bast, who died in 2015, alleged that he and Dean, who was killed in a tragic car accident in 1995 aged 24, kept their relationship private so as not to hurt the latter’s career. Bast remained hopeful that the pair would live together, before Dean died.

Willie and Jimmy Dean will be directed (and written) by Guy Guido; it will chart the pair’s first meeting to Dean’s death.

Guido has said (as per The Hollywood Reporter) that the James Dean biopic “is not a traditional” one.

He explained, “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.

“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 himself, who is best known for his role in Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, said, “James Dean is like the known unknown. His short life left behind just three films, a mountain of photographs and a cultural mythology we keep trying to decode. This script is a beautiful attempt at truthfully understanding who he really was — not just the icon, but the man.”

He also praised the upcoming biopic’s script for “highlight[ing] 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.”

Dean never publicly came out. In 2016, Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince’s James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes claimed that fellow Hollywood legend Marlon Brando had a sadistic gay relationship with Dean. 

Bast, who authored two biographies of Dean, was with his partner Paul Huson for 49 years before his death.

Willie and Jimmy Dean currently has no release date.

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