David O. Russell has just lined up his latest high-profile film project in the wake of the crash of 2022's fairly disastrous Amsterdam, with Variety reporting that the American Hustleannouncing various sabbaticals from social media, is also an actor. (Who knew?)
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Gomez previously teased her connection to the project on, of course, social media, posting a picture of Ronstadt’s 2013 memoir Simple Dreams on her Instagram story. Today, news broke that Russell is serving as director on the film, which is being produced in association with Ronstadt’s manager, John Boylan. (Ronstadt herself is still alive, although she suffers from a degenerative neurological disease that limits her ability to publicly appear, or sing; it’s not clear how involved she is in the biopic as of yet.)
As “the first lady of rock ‘n’ roll,” Ronstadt had a long musical career that jumped between and defied genres, moving from folk to rock to country and back again. Like Gomez, she’s also of Mexican descent—something that record executives occasionally tried to use against her, she revealed in an interview with Today in 2022, saying that they tried desperately to dissuade her from releasing 1987's Spanish-language Canciones de mi padre lest it “destroy her career.” (The album went double-platinum in the U.S., and currently sits in both the Grammy Hall Of Fame and the Library Of Congress’ National Recording Registry, so, y’know, don’t bet against Linda Ronstadt)
A tough act to follow, but it’s not like Gomez—who we might kid about, but who is still a phenomenally talented performer any way you slice it—doesn’t have a pretty hefty resumé of her own at this point. The bigger question mark, for us, is Russell: Amsterdam lost a ton of money (and a great deal of critical heat) despite its star-studded cast, and his last biopic, the Jennifer Lawrence-starring Joy, earned only muddled reviews in 2015. It’s been a decade since Russell had anything even resembling a hit in either the critical or commercial sense; it remains to be seen whether he still has the discipline to properly handle the sprawling, independent narrative of Ronstadt’s life.