Ethan Hawke, riding a career high after his turn in Oscar contender Boyhood, is to play Chet Baker in Born To Be Blue, a biopic of the legendary jazz trumpeter.
Deadline reports that work on the movie, which is directed by Canadian filmmaker Robert Budreau, has begun this week in Ontario. The story will centre around Baker's re-emergence in the late 1970s after years in the wilderness. It also stars British actress Carmen Ejogo, most recently seen in The Purge: Anarchy and Callum Keith Rennie, of Memento and The Butterfly Effect fame.
The musician is most notable for his solo on the song My Funny Valentine, and best known to non-jazz audiences for his solo on Elvis Costello's version of the Robert Wyatt classic Shipbuilding.
Baker, who battled a heroin addiction for most of his life, died in a hotel room in Amsterdam in 1988.
[Via Deadline]
[Images: Rex]
