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One of the most colorful lives in rock music might finally be hitting the screen. A biopic of Anthony Kiedis, singer and founder of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is in early development, Deadline reported. It’ll be based on Kiedis’s 2004 memoir, Scar Tissue, and co-produced by Kiedis and Chili Peppers manager Guy Oseary, along with big-time producer Brian Grazer. Kiedis’s memoir focuses on the early years of the Chili Peppers, the band’s debauchery, and his own struggles with addiction. If the film matches the book’s general arc, we’re hitting Kiedis’s childhood, the founding of the Chili Peppers in the early 1980s, the death of early guitarist Hillel Slovak, the solidification of the Kiedis-Flea–John Frusciante–Chad Smith classic lineup, and even some weird years with Dave Navarro in the middle. And if we’re lucky, the movie will include a visit from George Clinton during the Freaky Styley sessions.
This isn’t the first time someone’s attempted to adapt Kiedis’s memoir, after a previous TV series failed to take off. So, for this movie to finally work, it’s going to take the perfect cast — and we have some ideas. First requirement: must be comfortable appearing shirtless onscreen.
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First off, just look at this man — grow out that hair, slap on a mustache, and we’re cookin’. (In fact, Justin Long has grown a ’stache for a role before, as a podcaster in 2014’s Tusk, even though his loved ones were “very much against it.”) But more than the look, Long captures the boyish playfulness of Kiedis and the Chili Peppers. Kieidis’s story gets into some dark territory with his addiction struggles, but it’s also the story of one of rock’s most foolish bands, the Chili Peppers. Long will keep things from getting too heavy.
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Caleb Landry Jones, an actor who favors playing weirdos and also makes music, just belongs in this movie. So, okay, maybe he was retrofitted into the Flea role a bit, but doesn’t it work? He’s lanky, can rock a buzz cut, and will know his way around a guitar. And he’s shown an emotional core in films like The Florida Project and Three Billboards, which is necessary for Flea, who’s also a bit of a softie. (We do have to make sure the real-life Flea, an actor in his own right, gets a role in the film too. Maybe as Kiedis’s actor father, Blackie Dammett?)
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2024’s Chad Smith is nearly the spitting image of Will Ferrell, but unfortunately, we’re casting the Chad Smith of the ’80s and ’90s. So let’s attack this a different way. Drumming can be a hard skill to learn for a role, so let’s cast someone who already knows how — maybe Miles Teller, who learned for his Oscar-nominated performance in Whiplash. And what do you know, he kind of even has Smith’s face. Done!
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One of the major turning points in Scar Tissue is the death of Hillel Slovak, the Chili Peppers’ first guitarist, at just 26 from a heroin overdose. Kiedis deeply admired Slovak, who was a major influence on the Chili Peppers’ early sound. In other words, this is a character you’re going to immediately like, become attached to, and be wrecked over when they die. Dominic Sessa, who just finished playing a lovable troublemaker in The Holdovers, would be perfect.
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Time to dust off that Stranger Things wig! Maybe it’s cheating, but Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson from season four looks strikingly similar to the Chili Peppers’ thoughtful heartthrob John Frusciante — plus, Quinn learned guitar for that Stranger Things role. And after you’ve done a death scene, a quitting-the-band scene is nothing.
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This is it: the role that will bring former Victorious star (and Gen-Z childhood crush) Avan Jogia back to the spotlight. Who else can rock the signature long hair and goatee of Navarro, the Jane’s Addiction guitarist who later joined the Chili Peppers? Not to mention that Jogia mastered rock-star cool when he played Beck over a decade ago. Get ready for Jane’s Addiction to go viral after Quinn somehow makes Navarro sexy.
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The Scar Tissue movie almost certainly won’t pass the Bechdel test. Most of the women who pop up are the band members’ girlfriends, wives, and one-night stands. But the juiciest of those parts will probably be actress Ione Skye, whom Kiedis met through her Stranded co-star Flea in 1987 and proceeded to date for two years — an eternity to him at the time. Skye was just starting in her career at the time (and uh, only 16), so it makes sense to go with another up-and-coming actress, like Sophie Nélisse, currently playing a girl growing up too fast on Yellowjackets.
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A supporting role that would seem so extremely random if it weren’t true: Afrofuturist funk legend George Clinton produced the Chili Peppers’ 1985 album Freaky Styley, supplying the band with a ton of cocaine in the process. This is a comic-relief part that’d be perfect for Jordan Peele … if he ever decided to step out of the director’s chair and back onscreen for just a second. Maybe a closet full of flashy Clinton costumes can convince him.