Texas Musician Earns a Role in the Upcoming Prince Docu-Drama
A Texas musician missed his chance to audition for the role of Prince in an upcoming film, but he'll still be part the finished product. Or at least one body part will be! See why it's just his hands.
Dallas-based musician Ronnie Heart has been noticed for the ways that he resembles Prince when it comes to movement and dexterity on stage, and his fans thought he'd be a great fit for the movie. A friend tagged him on Facebook about the auditions for the new movie, but Heart let the opportunity pass because he had never acted before and said he felt shy about dong it, according to the Dallas Observer.
The docu-drama was filmed in Dallas right there in Heart's neck of the woods, and local producers got word that Heart had the mannerisms and the vibe of Prince and would be a slam dunk for the musical parts of the film. So even though they had a lead actor to play the role of Prince, they asked Heart to join the cast as a stunt musician to actually play the instruments. We'll see his hands and forearms - and maybe some frilly sleeves and crushed purple velvet jackets covering them at times - in the finished concert footage.
The movie was filmed in the DFW area at the AMS production studio in Addison and Mediatech Institute in Farmers Branch for Reelz. There's no official release date yet.
Heart told the Observer he regrets not trying harder to get the part of Prince, but he learned a lot from his movie-making experience and won't rule out other movie roles in the future. We'll watch for more from him, and in the meantime we can keep up with Heart's gigs on his Facebook page.
For the rest of us, we'll have to keep working on replicating the hands, arms, and movements of our favorite celebs to see if we can land a movie role. Nice work Ronnie!