Joaquin Phoenix To Play Johnny Cash In Biopic

03/10/03 3:30pm

How does a young actor portray one of music's greatest living legends?

Well, Joaquin Phoenix is going to have to figure it out, because he's been hired on to play Johnny Cash in a new film that will chronicle the early years of the Man In Black.

The film, Walk The Line, will start production this fall. Phoenix will step into Cash's boots and Reese Witherspoon will star as Cash's second (and current) wife June Carter. No other actors have been named at this time. The project will be directed by James Mangold.

Mangold has previously worked on the critically acclaimed Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie and the not-so-critically acclaimed Kate And Leopold, starring Meg Ryan as a modern-day woman and Hugh Jackman as her nineteenth century lover. The script will be co-written by Mangold and Gill Dennis.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie will focus on Cash's beginnings in the music industry in the '50s and will lead up to his drug addiction in the '60s. Of course, the benefit of making a movie about a living legend rather than a deceased one is that the subject himself can verify events.

Cash and Carter have both reportedly blessed the film and will give the filmmakers access to details of their personal lives.

Johnny Cash just celebrated his 71st birthday. His latest album, The Man Comes Around, is the fourth installment of his American Recordings series.