Daniel Radcliffe is playing “Weird Al” Yankovic in an upcoming biopic, and the first look is already here. The Harry Potter star was spotted on set on Thursday and a few candid photos have now been published by E! News. This glimpse already has many fans excited to see where this movie is going.
Roku announced WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story just last month, with Radcliffe already attached to star. Now we can see the 32-year-old actor for ourselves in a massive curly wig and mustache, wearing a camouflage-patterned shirt and checkered sneakers. It looks like Radcliffe was between shots since he was holding an anachronistic smartphone, but other than that he was a dead ringer for a young Yankovic. Finally, one closeup shot showed Radcliffe in gold-rimmed glasses.
IM GOING TO EXPLODE AT THESE PICTURES OF DANIEL RADCLIFFE AS WEIRD AL. pic.twitter.com/6BX3kqkVUc
— Ronnie Gross Jr (@ronniegrossjr) February 19, 2022
Yankovic co-wrote this biopic himself with screenwriter Eric Appel. It was announced in January, and at the time Yankovic tweeted about the decision to cast Radcliffe in the lead. As a part of his explanation, he shared a 30-second clip of Radcliffe singing Tom Lehrer’s 1959 song “The Elements” back in 2010.
“There are MANY reasons why I wanted to cast Daniel Radcliffe in my movie, but this is what really clinched the deal for me. (He’s going to absolutely kill this,)” wrote at the time. Fans seemed to agree, replying with their approval for this move and their high hopes for this movie.
Yankovic is now 62 years old, and is best known for his musical parodies of chart-topping songs, as well as his accompanying parody music videos. He was born in 1959 and raised in the Los Angeles area, where he skipped two grades early on. He earned a degree in architecture at California Polytechnic State University where he also became a radio DJ and, eventually, a singer-songwriter.
There are MANY reasons why I wanted to cast Daniel Radcliffe in my movie, but this is what really clinched the deal for me. (He’s going to absolutely kill this.) pic.twitter.com/TiDNXwQdtR
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) January 26, 2022
It’s not clear when exactly Yankovic’s biopic will be set, but it seems safe to assume that 32-year-old Radcliffe will play Yankovic around that same age. That means we are likely looking at a depiction of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Yankovic was an established artist with multiple hits under his belt, some major tours behind him and some multimedia projects in the works. It may center around his creative slump following the poor commercial and critical performance of his movie UHF. According to a report by The A.V. Club, Yankovic took three years off when the movie and its accompanying album flopped.
There’s no word yet on when WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story will premiere. The movie is filming now and will premiere on Roku Channels, but it is not clear if it will be available on other platforms.
