Penn Badgley

Penn Badgley (fanpop.com)

Penn Badgley is leaving the Upper East Side and about to hit the big screen again!

The “Gossip Girl” actor will play Jeff Buckley in a movie about the late singer/songwriter’s relationship with his equally noted father, folk singer Tim Buckley.

The news was announced by the film’s producers on Monday. With him being chosen for the role, Badgley had closed the door of opportunity for several other actors who were eye-ing it, including Rob Pattinson, James Franco, Jared Leto and James Marsden.

When asked what he feels about this honor, Badgley said in a statement, “To play a man who was singularly gifted as an artist, greatly misunderstood and mythologized as a human being…It’s something very special and sacred. I’m going to give all I can to this project.”

His casting in “Greetings From Tim Buckley” ends a search that took more than a year and marks the first film ever made about either musician.

It will follow the true story of the days leading up to Jeff Buckley’s breakthrough performance at a 1991 tribute concert to his father in St. Ann’s Church, who abandoned him as a baby and died of a drug overdose in 1975 aged 28.

Badgley’s character falls for a young woman working at the concert, and eventually comes to understand his father.

The concert apparently sets the singer on the road to stardom. Buckley drowned in 1997, aged 30. He released one studio album during his lifetime, “Grace,” which featured a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

The film will start shooting in August in New York City. Dan Algrant (“People I Know”) will direct the independent project from a script that he co-wrote. The roles of Tim Buckley and the girlfriend have not been cast yet.

“Greetings From Tim Buckley” is being produced with the authorization of Tim Buckley’s estate. A rival project, a biopic about Jeff Buckley’s life, is being developed with the help of his mother and executor, Mary Guibert.

24-year-old Badgley had appeared in such features as “Easy A” and the remake of “The Stepfather.”

Congrats for the upcoming movie, Penn! We can’t wait to see you on it!

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