Lists || By: || August 15, 2011 03:30 PM EST

Who Should Play Patti Smith in the Just Kids Movie?

cateblanchett-dylan-15-0.jpg

Rock legend Patti Smith set the literary world on fire last year with her memoir Just Kids, a sensitive, longing look at her friendship with the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The book mostly chronicles their years in New York prior to her fame as a punk poetess from the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s -- before Horses revolutionized Ginsbergian rock. Now word is out that Smith is adapting the National Book Award winner into a screenplay with Gladiator scribe John Logan. Who should play the inimitable lady on the big screen?

Let's rank our top three candidates, shall we? We're looking for a thespian of about 20-30 who can telegraph the soul of an artist. Pickings may be slim.

cateblanchett-dylan-15-0.jpg3. Kat Dennings

Now, the Nick and Norah bombshell is a bit voluptuous and vampy for Patti Smith's cut-up men's shirts and suspenders, but i suspect some clever corseting can be done. I'm interested in seeing more sides of Dennings than the cavalier wisegirl who isn't too cool to talk to you. I want to see her proclaim, dammit, in a woozy fit. Her version of "Because the Night" would surely bring CBGB patrons to their knees.


cateblanchett-dylan-15-0.jpg2. Kristen Stewart

Say what you will about the sleepy-eyed maiden currently bearing a Cullen seedling, but Stewart looked damn fly in The Runaways. When given heartfelt dialogue, she's a fine actor too (see: Adventureland). Though Patti Smith's husky voice and electric stage presence would be a challenge for Stewart, she's an obvious choice thanks to her natural air, a combination of surly and shy.


cateblanchett-dylan-15-0.jpg1. Cate Blanchett

Blanchett possesses that mysterious ability to convey not just any gender or accent, but nearly any age. If you couldn't believe how convincing and cool she was as a young Bob Dylan in the ridiculously stupid I'm Not There, imagine how ferocious she'd be as the drag-in-drag Smith, a woman who always flaunted the firepower of a Gorgon, the sneer of Dylan himself, and the call of a mythological bird demon. Blanchett's got the nerve -- and the cheekbones.

Runners-Up: Keira Knightley, Mia Wasikowska, "Ezra Miller

":http://www.movieline.com/2011/08/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-french-trailer-tilda-swinton-and-john-c-reilly-birth-a-sociopath.php

· John Logan And Patti Smith Duet On Her Robert Mapplethorpe Memoir 'Just Kids' [Deadline]



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