Not even one week after the Playboy mogul died at the age of 91, his on-screen counterpart has already been cast.
Jared Leto has been cast to play Hefner in Brett Ratner‘s planned biopic about the life of the Playboy founder.
Videos by PopCulture.com
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Leto has been added to the film which Ratner has been planning for some time.
“Jared is an old friend,” Ratner said of Leto. “When he heard I got the rights to Hef’s story, he told me, ‘I want to play him. I want to understand him.’ And I really believe Jared ca do it. He’s one of the great actors of today.”
Ratner began planning on directing this project back in 2007 when the rights belonged to Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. Those rights went to producer Jerry Weintraub after that, but Ratner bought them for his production company, RatPac Entertainment, when Weintraub passed away in 2015.
The director brought Leto to the Playboy mansion to meet Hugh Hefner back in April, but the founder wasn’t greeting guests that day due to his failing health.
Although they never had the chance to meet, Ratner said that Leto would still do a great job with tackling Hefner’s character. “There’s enough footage of Hef out there that Jared will be able to get as much information as he wants.”
