Billy Zane plays Marlon Brando in the upcoming biopic movie Waltzing with Brando and it’s safe to say that the Titanic star looks uncannily like the late Oscar-winner.
Set during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the film focuses on when the Hollywood star purchased the private atoll Teriaroa.
The island is just north of Tahiti where he had shot Munity on the Bounty instead of starring in Lawrence of Arabia. And during the shoot, he fell in love with the South Pacific region.
During this period, Brando recruited Los Angeles architect Bernard Judge (Jon Heder in the movie) “to build the world’s first ecologically perfect retreat on a small, uninhabitable island.”
Directed by Bill Fishman, Waltzing with Brando recreates moments from two of the actor’s most famous movies, The Godfather and Last Tango In Paris.
Speaking with Deadline, Zane said: “When they called him about the gangster movie, he did it to fund what they were trying to create on Tetiaroa.”
Shot mostly on the atoll, the upcoming film is based on Judge’s memoir Waltzing with Brando: Planning a Paradise in Tahiti.
The actor said of Brando’s activism being ahead of its time: “Back then no one would touch causes. He championed civil rights, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. He walked the walk for civil rights; he did it for Indigenous rights. What no one knows about is what he did for the environment as an activist and the foresight he had on what in fact would [become] a climate crisis.”
Zane added that the movie is “A love letter to Tahiti and him and his passion.” The actor is currently at the Cannes Film Festival where he and the director are completing the final mix of the movie before it goes up for sale.
The pair, who are also producers on Waltzing with Brando alongside Dean Bloxom, have pledged 5 per cent of profits to go to those who live on Tetiaroa.