Today, in New York Culture News: “Girls”‘ Zosia Mamet to Play Patti Smith

Doctor Who’s Matt Smith stars as Robert Mapplethorpe.
Film + TV
Today, in New York Culture News: “Girls”‘ Zosia Mamet to Play Patti Smith

Doctor Who’s Matt Smith stars as Robert Mapplethorpe.

Words: Sadie Sartini Garner

photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images

January 26, 2016

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 14: Zosia Mamet attends 3.1 Phillip Lim Spring 2016 during New York Fashion Week at Pier 94 on September 14, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)

This is shaping up to be a big year for photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. In addition to March’s joint retrospective at the Getty Museum and LACMA in Los Angeles, 2016 will also see the release of Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, HBO’s full-length documentary on the late photographer. (We’re looking forward to both.)

And now you can add to that list the new film Mapplethorpe, which is currently in the works. The film will feature Doctor Who star Matt Smith as the photographer, and, in a role so perfectly New York that its announcement may as well come with a new LCD Soundsystem single, Girls Zosia Mamet as Patti Smith. Mapplethorpe shot the iconic cover of Smith’s Horses album, while Smith’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir Just Kids was written about their relationship.

As NME reports (via Deadline), the film will be helmed by Ondi Timoner, who is perhaps best known for her 2004 documentary Dig!, which dove deep into the madness of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols.