Lizzo is set to star in an upcoming biopic focusing on one of the most influential, if still largely unknown figures of 20th Century music: Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
It’s been reported by Deadline Hollywood that Rosetta is being developed by Amazon MGM Studios. There’s no confirmed director as yet, let alone a release date, but it seems like the project’s producers are the actor Forest Whitaker and Lizzo herself.
Deadline says that Rosetta will “capture a pivotal period in Tharpe’s life - one of groundbreaking innovation, defiant passion and secret love. As she shatters musical boundaries with her signature guitar sound, she must navigate societal constraints, conceal her love for another woman and ultimately transform a wedding into one of the most legendary concerts in history: the first stadium show.”
Certainly, Tharpe’s life is a good shout for a biopic. She was one of the pivotal figures who first linked gospel to rhythm and blues and paved the way for many of rock 'n’ roll’s foundational artists.
Little Richard said she was his favourite singer; indeed, his first public performance came at one of her concerts in 1947, and Elvis, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash all praised her singing and guitar playing. Yet few now can remember seeing her first hand. Tharpe toured Europe just once, in 1964, and died of a stroke in 1973.
Interest in Tharpe has grown in recent years. Back in 2011, BBC4 screened a documentary, Sister Rosetta Tharpe: The Godmother of Rock N’ Roll. She was finally inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 - Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard and Questlove performed a cover of one of her most famous songs, That’s All, at the ceremony.
And there have two musicals staged about her life in the last decade. The second of these, Marie and Rosetta, can be seen later this year in Kingston upon Thames and Chichester, with UK soul singer Beverley Knight starring as Tharpe.
She has been portrayed in the movies before, too. In Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 epic Elvis. she was played by the Bristolian singer songwriter Yola.
Anyway, Lizzo seems made up to have bagged the role. When the news broke that she was down to play Tharpe, she posted: “Black people made rock n roll yeaaaah” on her Instagram page.
This won’t be Lizzo’s first screen role. She made her acting debut in the 2019 feature Hustlers and has voiced the role of Lydia in the animation UglyDolls.
Whether she plans to go 'full Chalamet' and play all the guitar parts in Rosetta remains to be seen, but she has been spotted playing a guitar at recent shows, so it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.
@livenationnyc ♬ original sound - Live Nation NYC
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