David Furnish has admitted working on Sir Elton John biopic Rocketman has left him suffering “sleepless nights”.
Starring Taron Egerton as Sir Elton and Richard Madden as his manager John Reid, the highly anticipated film is billed as being “based on a true fantasy” and will feature songs from the revered singer’s extensive back catalogue.
Canadian filmmaker Furnish, who married Sir Elton in 2014, has been working on the film for more than 12 years and described it as a “labour of love”.
But he admitted feeling pressure in dealing with Sir Elton’s legacy as the couple’s two sons, Zachary, eight, and Elijah, six, will inherit it.
He told the Press Association: “It’s been an interesting challenge for me, I’m super excited. As a filmmaker it’s a wonderful opportunity and I want to do the best job I can.
“But I’m also responsible for making a film about my husband. And our sons are going to inherit that legacy, so the legacy we leave with that film – cinema is such a powerful thing – we want to make sure we do our best to get it right.
“I’m excited but I have a few sleepless nights because I feel a profound sense of responsibility to get it right.”
Also starring Jamie Bell as Sir Elton’s writing partner Bernie Taupin and Bryce Dallas Howard as his mother, Sheila Eileen, Rocketman charts the British singer’s rise from prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music to global superstar.
Furnish, 56, said Sir Elton, 71, wanted to ensure his unique life story had an appropriately special film to celebrate it.
He said: “In typical Elton fashion he said ‘I don’t want a straightforward biopic, my life has been too crazy to just tell it in a very linear, unimaginative way’.
“So it’s a musical fantasy with the film going in and out of fantasy sequences with the catalogue reimagined and repurposed to draw out key emotional moments and key achievements and key developments in his life.”
Rocketman is due to be released in the UK on May 24.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article