More than six years into the journey of bringing Candy Darling‘s life story to the big screen, Hari Nef has taken matters into her own hands.
After Deadline reported in 2022 that the actress signed on to portray the LGBTQ pioneer and Andy Warhol superstar, Nef recently gave an update on the project, which she has penned after screenwriter Stephanie Kornick was originally attached in 2019.
“I want to preface everything I say about the film by saying we have zero dollars and zero cents,” she told Vogue. “We are in the very early stages of fundraising and casting.”
Nef continued, “I had to do so much research before I could even think about page one in the Final Draft script-writing software. It took me probably a year and a half to work my way up to that, but at a certain point I just had to say to myself, You’ve seen everything, you’ve read everything—now just figure out what you want to see. What parts of the story can you speak to? Which ones are most interesting to you? I kind of gave up trying to make the definitive primer on her. Candy can be interpreted in so many ways … and she lent herself to that.”
Noting that Darling’s life and career “was deeply inspirational and aspirational and life-affirming” to her as a fellow trans actress, Nef explained, “Every actress thinks about who she could play in a movie, but Candy was the only person that I could really see myself as a shoo-in for, so I always kept it in the back of my head.”
Although she kept the details close to her chest, Nef called the biopic “a showbiz movie, and it takes the viewer through her major roles and the way she tried to cross over into her celluloid dream, and at certain moments really succeeded in doing that, but only as much as she was allowed to—she was out of her time. It moves me. It’s why I need to tell this story, because it makes me feel less alone, and I know that so many girls feel that way about her.”
Nef said she wants to portray Darling with “a sensitivity to how Candy would want to be portrayed … while not shying away from the truth, either.”
Additionally, her prep to play the beauty icon has included making her eyebrows “thinner and thinner to see how much I can pull off,” as well as working with “a fabulous hair artist of cinema” to figure out if she needs a wig to channel Darling. “If I have to bleach, I will bleach,” said Nef.
From producers Christian D. Bruun, Katrina Wolfe and Louis Spiegler, Deadline exclusively announced the untitled Candy Darling biopic in January 2019, with Transparent‘s Kornick attached to write and Zackary Drucker attached in an advisory and executive producer role.
A staple in Warhol’s Factory scene, Darling was known for her clever wit and good looks, reaching cult status when she starred in Warhol’s Women In Revolt and was later immortalized in popular songs including Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and The Velvet Underground’s ‘Candy Says’. A central figure within the vibrant art and theater scenes of downtown New York City throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, Darling died of leukemia in 1974 at the age 29.
The post Hari Nef Explains Why She Chose To Write Candy Darling Biopic Herself: “I Need To Tell This Story” appeared first on Deadline.
