Ron Perlman Growls Yes to Tom Waits Biopic

HOLLYWOOD – Ron Perlman has confirmed he will play Tom Waits in the long awaited David Lynch biopic of the singer/songwriter Raindog Trombone.

The Hellboy actor said that Waits has long been a hero of his and the opportunity to work with Lynch was ‘something every actor dreams of.’

The script – based on Barney Hoskins’ biography The Low Side of the Road - has been kicking around development hell for sometime, with various directors from Walter Salles to Martin Scorsese attached. Lynch came on-board only after the subject of the biopic made the request himself in a beautifully written letter which read:

Dear David,

My name’s Tom Waits. I kinda hope you heard of me, heh heh. Yeah, ahem, I know, I know. You must get letters of this kind all the time, but let me be clear, I ain’t gonna grouse or grovel, gravel and chickens and an ol’ 45 as a plate outside the window fills with rain. They’re tryin’ to get a movie made, of crows breaking black against a low November sky. And I’d sure appreciate it, that is, if’n you’d put your hand to the helm and try and get this rickety ol’ ship of a project off of the blunt rocks before the scarecrows attack with their penknives and tattoos of weeping clowns. I’ll pay you five gallons of petrol and a valentine nailed to the forehead of the last lawyer you loved.

Yours in a nightmare’s gown,

T. Waits

I love everything about that letter.

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