‘Girls’ Star to Portray Patti Smith in Biopic

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Zosia Mamet in Girls (via HBO)

Just a few months back, Best Classic Bands told you that Showtime was adapting Patti Smith‘s award-winning memoir Just Kids into a limited-episode TV series. Just Kids details the rocker’s relationship with the late avant-garde photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who shot the iconic album cover of her 1975 debut Horses. The nonprofit Mapplethorpe Foundation is working on its own as-yet-untitled biopic about the photographer, set to begin filming this summer, and Zosia Mamet has just been cast as the so-called godmother of punk Smith. Mamet is best known for her role on HBO’s Girls, as well as appearances on Mad Men, United States of Tara and Parenthood.

Matt Smith of Doctor Who fame will portray Mapplethorpe, who revolutionized the art world with his elegant yet explicit images before he died at age 42. “After several years of developing this script and searching across the globe for the perfect talent to embody the rich and layered roles of visionary artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, I am ecstatic to have found Matt Smith and Zosia Mamet,” writer-director Ondi Timoner said in a statement. “They will bring indelible passion, raw humanity and authenticity to this timeless, inspiring story.”

The 27-year-old Mamet has played Shoshanna Shapiro in Girls since it debuted in 2012. The series’ fifth season begins February 21. She is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet, best known for Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed the Plow.

HBO just debuted its own documentary about Mapplethorpe at Sundance Film Festival – Mapplethorpe: Look At the Pictures. Meanwhile, Smith is co-writing the forthcoming Showtime series based on Just Kids, with Penny Dreadful creator John Logan serving as producer. The punk rock singer-songwriter heroine believes that the TV adaptation offers an opportunity to enhance the story she wrote in the book. “A limited series on Showtime will allow us to explore the characters more deeply, enabling us to develop stories beyond the book and allow a measure of unorthodox presentation,” she explains.

Smith released another memoir, M Train, last October, which details her various travels to the graves and homes of her artistic and literary heroes. She recounts her chance meeting with Fred “Sonic” Smith, who became her husband and father of her children, and shares other memories from later chapters of her fascinating life as well as reflections on life, loss, creativity and coffee.