Ben Kingsley and Ezra Miller are Salvador Dalí in the DalíLand trailer
American Psycho director Mary Harron's latest project examines Salvador Dalí's life and career in 1974 New York City
Sir Ben Kingsley stars as Salvador Dalí in the upcoming film DalíLand. Director Mary Harron may be best known for helming American Psycho, but she is no stranger to depicting historical figures, having also made I Shot Andy Warhol and the Charles Manson film Charlie Says.
“I had such a powerful image of Sir Ben in Sexy Beast I thought he might be too overwhelming,” Harron says in a press release. “Dalí had the power of a genius but he was also a coward. As absurd as it sounds, I happened to see Sir Ben in Iron Man 3 where he plays the double role of a frightening terrorist and a sniveling, hilarious coward, and it became clear to me that an actor like Sir Ben can do anything. He’s universal in his reach and he’s also a great comic actor, which wouldn’t seem obvious from roles like Gandhi.”
However, DalíLand is not a straightforward biopic of the Spanish surrealist. It is primarily focused on a brief window of time in 1974 when the artist and his wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa) lived in New York, and its other central character James (Christopher Briney) is an original creation, an audience surrogate stepping into Dalí’s world.
“As a young person who was naïve, non-threatening and very open to things, amazing things happened to me,” Harron describes. “I was invited to parties I never dreamed of getting invited to, people gave me jobs and for a couple of years, I stepped onto a merry-go-round. I wanted to make a film that evoked that wonderful time in my life. So we created James, the New York gallery assistant who becomes Dalí’s assistant who steps onto the merry-go-round.”
As shown in the film’s trailer, DalíLand follows James as he’s tasked with making sure the artist makes a deadline. Unfortunately, Dalí is more interested in partying than working or thinking too much about where his career has ended up.
DalíLand also co-stars Rupert Graves as Dalí’s secretary Captain Peter Moore, Andreja Pejić as muse Amanda Lear, Suki Waterhouse as fictional socialite Ginesta, and Mark McKenna as Alice Cooper. Ezra Miller plays a young Dalí in flashbacks, making a very brief appearance in the trailer, though their involvement in the project will inevitably become a significant talking point upon the film’s release.
DalíLand will be available both in theaters and on demand on June 9.