This past week, Josh Brolin appeared on Conan to promote the Coen brothers’ latest, Hail, Caesar!, and while he was there, he made an offhand-but-official announcement: In the upcoming biopic No Show Jones, he will play the great George Jones.
Jones, who died in 2013 at the age of eighty-one, had started to develop the project himself towards the end of his life, but was unfortunately unable to help see it all the way through. In the past few years, Nancy Jones—George’s widow—has taken the reins of the film, and recently announced the hiring of Alan Wenkus, the Oscar-nominated writer of Straight Outta Compton, to pen the screenplay.
On Conan, Brolin also revealed that Jessica Chastain will play George’s first wife and duet partner Tammy Wynette, which implies that things are really moving on the production. As far as his inspiration for the role, the No Country for Old Men and Goonies star cited the idiosyncrasies of Jones’s offstage persona, including a three-year period in which the country legend exclusively spoke like a duck (“Whenever he would sing it would be a number one hit, and then he’d go have a drink and speak in duck voice”).
Currently, it’s not clear if Brolin can or will sing as part of his role, but we do know that the Thrashin’ star can skate, so there’s that. Maybe he’ll hit up his fellow country biopic star Tom Hiddleston for some advice on how to be a crooner.
(via Consequence of Sound)
