Playing a legend! While many celebrities had iconic career milestones through the years, it can be an impressive feat to see such accomplishments recreated on the big screen.
Celebrities such as Dolly Parton, Justin Bieber and Hillary Clinton are among the few who already have casting ideas in mind, though no films have officially been confirmed.
“There’s a lot of parts of my life that would make [a] good [movie] —just like the little ‘Coat of Many Colors’ in my early days, and then all the little pockets,” the “Jolene” songstress told Marie Claire in December 2020. “Years and years ago, when I was going to do the Broadway musical — I never can get it to how I want it, but I’m still working on it. But I thought [Kristin Chenoweth would] be an ideal person to do that. But we’re all getting older now, so if we tell the parts, we may be able to have different Dollys. We’d probably have to have — as long as my career has been — like a little Dolly, and a middle Dolly and then the older one. And she’d still be great for that.”
While Parton raved over the Wicked OG to play the part on the Great White Way, she previously name-dropped the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson in a movie adaptation. “That depends on when I get it done,” the 9 to 5 star told Elle in October 2019 of her final pick.
Witherspoon — who previously played June Cash in the Oscar-winning Walk the Line biopic of Johnny Cash’s life — has played coy about the speculation, though is in the process of adapting Parton’s Run, Rose, Run novel.
“Dolly Parton is not only an icon to me, but a true inspiration to women and girls everywhere,” the Big Little Lies alum said in a March 2022 statement of the project. “My admiration for her grew to even greater heights when reading Run, Rose, Run, a gripping and heartbreaking book I couldn’t put down. I couldn’t feel more honored to be working alongside her and James [Patterson, Parton’s cowriter] to bring this remarkable story to the screen.”
While Witherspoon is one of Parton’s top contenders for a musical biopic, she’s not quite ready for her own story to be told on film.
“Well I don’t think all the chapters of my life have been told yet, so I don’t think I’m ready for a biopic,” the Hello Sunshine founder noted during a September 2021 interview with Fox 5 New York, revealing that her lookalike daughter, Ava Phillippe, would not play her. “She’s not an actress. She’s so happy with her life, and I am just so enormously proud of her and the incredible, compassionate young woman she’s become.”
Clinton, for her part, has a clear frontrunner in mind for the potential movie of her life. (Her husband, Bill Clinton, was already brought to life by Clive Owen in 2021’s Impeachment: American Crime Story miniseries about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Edie Falco played Hillary as a supporting character.)
“If I had a choice, it would be Meryl Streep, of course,” the former Secretary of State told The Guardian in July 2014.
Scroll below to see which celebrities could play another legend in a movie of their life: