In Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, the upcoming parody biopic of the titular beloved song satirist and accordion player, audiences will see Madonna as she’s never been seen before. Probably because she never acted like that in the first place. Actor Evan Rachel Wood portrays the character as an over-the-top musical drug gangster. And that is completely intentional.
The film, which is a, shall we say, highly fictionalized (and downright absurdist) story of the “life” of Al, stylizes the singer’s relatively bucolic early life and rise to stardom with all the trappings of rock and roll excess, including a staggering array of addictive behaviors (in real life Al is a lifelong teetotaler, it should be noted). Wood’s Madonna is pained with the same alternative reality brush, presented as a leader of a drug cartel who embarks on a relationship with Daniel Radcliffe‘s Yankovic that makes Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen look like Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
For the record, though the Material Girl and Weird Al have at least had some business dealings with each other IRL — Al sent up her hit single “Like a Virgin” with his own hit parody “Like a Surgeon” — any romantic relationship between the two is purely fictional and straight out of the wild imagination of the film’s writers. Who happens to be Yankovic and the director Eric Appel.
“It was basically taking the genius that is Madonna and turning her into a sociopath that ends up running a drug cartel,” Wood told Entertainment Weekly of her over-the-top performance. “She’s very conniving and completely just using Weird Al, and everything she does is a pathological lie to get ahead in her career.”
In one scene in the trailer, Madonna approaches Yankovic in his mansion to ask when he’ll do a parody of “Like a Virgin.” Yankovic asks, “Is that song … autobiographical?” Madonna says “yes,” after which the two begin passionately kissing. After which Madonna adds, “Except for the fact that I’ve had a lot of sex.”
Wood states of the part, “It has to be a little bit ridiculous.” Radcliffe agrees, telling EW that Wood was committed “a thousand percent, hitting the ground running. She’s not bothered by how quick it was moving, how it was just a few takes. You just really got the tone and pace of the film, and it was very exciting.”
We can only hope that the real Ms. Ciccone feels the same.
