Robert Kennedy’s life had him veering in and out of his sibling’s shadows to emerge, through tragedy and triumph, as a figurehead of American politics before his assassination in the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles in June of 1968.
Deadline Hollywood had the news earlier today that Matt Damon is on board, pending his approval of Steven Knight’s script, to star as the politician in a film based on the Evan Thomas book, His Life.
The Kennedys have a peerless political legacy and RFK has been the subject of biopics, or at least has made an appearance in biopics of his brother, many times before. Emilio Estevez’s cruelly overlooked 2006 film Bobby, centred around the build up and assassination of RFK but the man himself only appeared in fragments of shots – it was about the people surrounding him, and it was all the more effective because of it.
I’m reading Thomas’s book at the moment and it’s a thorough and candid view of his life, Gary Ross, the director heading the development, will have a lot to condense into the film, and Damon will have to master the two sides of Bobby Kennedy to convey the inspirational and fearsome politician.
Very interested in this one.
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