Courtney Love Reveals She Was Offered to Play Janis Joplin in a Movie: ‘I’m a Little Prettier’
Courtney Love said she was offered the role of Janis Joplin in a movie about the classic rock musician’s life. Here’s what Love said about Joplin and some of the Hole singer’s acting highlights.
Courtney Love said she was chosen to play Janis Joplin in a movie
Singer Courtney Love revealed she was once offered to play Janis Joplin in a movie while discussing the possibility of a biopic about her late husband, Kurt Cobain.
“There was talk of a biopic a few years back,” she told HuffPost in July 2013. “I think I changed my mind about it, but I did do a deal with Universal.” Love named some of the actors considered to portray her in the film. “Scarlett Johansson was into it; I was also into Michelle Williams. These were the people the studio offered to me. It wasn’t me choosing them.”
The singer named her choice to play her in a Kurt Cobain biopic. “I kind of liked Anna Faris, which everyone said I was insane for, but I thought she kind of looked a little bit like me, and she was a little prettier,” she said. “[That’s] the whole point of Hollywood: I was offered to play Janis Joplin. I’m a little prettier than Janis Joplin so it’s always like that. Whatever.”
Courtney Love said she wanted a biography similar to Janis Joplin’s
Courtney Love might have been the perfect choice to play Janis Joplin. Besides her experience as a rock musician, Love also took a keen interest in her fellow singer’s life.
An interviewer who spoke with Love in 1992 noted that the singer “stared” at a copy of the Janis Joplin biography, Going Down With Janis by Peggy Caserta. “This is the sort of biography I want written about me,” she said (per The Sydney Morning Herald).
Love picked up the book and started reading its shocking contents aloud. “I want to read out the first sentence, OK? ‘I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin and the girl lying between my legs was Janis Joplin,’” she read. “This Joplin book is insanely graphic… sex, heroin this, cocaine that. I can’t believe she was like that.”
The singer has had several acting roles
Although she never portrayed Janis Joplin in a movie, Courtney Love showcased her acting skills in several other films.
She auditioned for the role of Nancy Spungen in the 1986 movie Sid and Nancy, but director Alex Cox went with a more experienced actor (Chloe Webb). Love was cast as Nancy’s friend Gretchen instead.
Cox was so impressed with Love that he wrote a part for her in his next film, the 1987 movie Straight to Hell (per NME). She then earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the 1996 movie The People vs. Larry Flynt. And in 1999, she appeared in Man on the Moon alongside stars like Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, and Paul Giamatti.
