Lars Ulrich isn't sure about how to make a Metallica biopic work – but he does know who would play the band members if it did happen…
Metallica have already dabbled in the big screen before with legendary 2004 documentary Some Kind Of Monster and OTT 2013 thriller Through The Never, and while Lars Ulrich hasn't entirely ruled out doing a biopic in the future, he isn't sure how this autobiographical format would work.
"…I’m not sold on the idea," he tells Collider. "The idea of writing an autobiography I think is challenging, because I think you would have to be completely truthful, and to be 100 per cent truthful, it’s hard to tell the stories without bringing other people into it, and then you sort of get into that whole thing where maybe the protagonist in that particular story wouldn’t want the story told."
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Lars admits that he thinks there is a "dilemma" between telling the truth, but also respecting that not everyone would want to be included in the story.
"There’s something about that I haven’t quite figured out yet, but obviously as a creative undertaking, I would love to throw myself out into what Metallica would look like in the medium of film," he continues. "That’s one of the main reasons we did Through The Never six or seven years ago, but if it’s going to be more of autobiography, I think that’s going to be way more challenging because there’s so many biopics where you kind of sit and roll your eyes.
"I guess somewhere I’m just kind of a stickler for the truth, for some reason, so if you’re not gonna tell the truth, then maybe you shouldn’t say anything at all. That’s where it gets a little complicated for me, but let’s see how it plays out."
While a ’Tallica biopic isn't set in stone, then, Lars does know who would be perfect for the band members' roles: he jokes that James Spader would play the drummer, "the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz would play [James] Hetfield", and "Carlos Santana would play Kirk [Hammett]".
Interestingly, Kerrang! recently had the very same idea – whittling down 10 rock star biopics that we'd love to see. And we gave Chris ‘Thor’ Hemsworth the role of Papa Het…
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