Mitchell Robertson Cast as Bill Bast in James Dean Film One Hand Tied
Mitchell Robertson has been cast as Bill Bast in One Hand Tied, an independent film about James Dean, The Hollywood Reporter reported. Brandon Flynn will play Dean opposite him.
The film is written and directed by Guy Guido. It adapts Bast's 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean, and was formerly titled Willie and Jimmy Dean. Producers include Steven J. Wolfe and Flavia Amon.
In the memoir, Bast writes that he met Dean in the UCLA theater program when he was 19. The two became roommates, then close friends, and eventually lovers. The script covers the stretch from that first meeting to Dean's death on September 30, 1955.
Guido spoke with Bast in 2011, four years before Bast died at 84, according to the same report. That conversation is part of how the project took shape, and the film is built on Bast's own account of those years.
Robertson is no stranger to playing a younger version of a famous character. He played the younger version of Jamie Bell's character in Netflix's Half Man. Now he takes on the older role of a writer looking back on a friendship that began in a university classroom.
No release date has been reported. The casting sets the film's two lead roles, and the rest of the production will follow from there.
