As reported by Deadline, Matt Smith has signed on to star in a biopic of avant-garde photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith is best known for his time as The Doctor on Doctor Who, and he’ll be joined in the biopic—titled Mapplethorpe—by Girls’ Zosia Mamet. She’ll be playing iconic singer-songwriter Patti Smith, who was Mapplethorpe’s longtime friend and former lover before he died of AIDS in the ‘80s. Mapplethorpe will be written and directed by We Live In Public and Brand: A Second Coming’s Ondi Timoner, and it’s being produced with the cooperation of the Mapplethorpe Foundation, an organization that he founded before his death to act as his estate and raise money for HIV/AIDS research.
Regarding Matt Smith and Zosia Mamet, Timoner says she has been working for “several years” to find “the perfect talent to embody the rich and layered roles of visionary artists Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith,” adding that she’s “ecstatic to have found” the two of them.