An upcoming James Dean Biopic, One Hand Tied, has found its co-lead in actor Mitchell Robertson. The actor will play Bill Bast, James Dean’s UCLA roommate, close friend, and purported lover. Actor Brandon Flynn will be playing James Dean.
The film is being written and directed by Guy Guidos. The story is based on true events, and Guidos has conducted extensive research on the relationship between Bast and Dean. The two’s relationship, as described by Bast in his 2006 memoir Surviving James Dean, began when Bast was 19, when they met while working at the UCLA theater. Bast claims in the memoir that their relationship was kept secret while Dean’s career took off and he pursued relationships with his female co-stars.
The script spans Bast and Dean’s first meeting through Dean’s death in a car accident on Sept. 30, 1955, as the two’s relationship grows and they navigate being gay in 1950s America. Demonstrating Guido’s extensive research, the writer/director spoke to Bast in 2011, before he died in 2015 at age 84.
The film is being produced by Steven J. Wolfe, whose previous credits include producing 500 Days of Summer, and Flavia Amon, a Fox Searchlight veteran of 21 years. Casting for the rest of the film is currently underway.
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