James Franco has been wanting to get everything rolling on his biopic called Sal for a while now, and it looks like it’s gaining momentum under the news that Franco has chosen who will play the lead.
Val Lauren, relatively unknown, is set to play Sal Mineo, who is best known for playing opposite James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and being one of the first openly gay stars:
“Sal Mineo himself was an extraordinary and super complex guy,” Lauren tells. “People know him for Rebel Without a Cause, but he was technically the first actor who came out of the closet. He was very brave.”
It looks like both Franco and Lauren are extremely familiar with who Mineo was as a person and an actor, who tragically was murdered when he was just 37 years old.
Franco is a super creative guy that has a lot of talent to add to his hard work ethic, so we have very little doubt that this project won’t be amazing.
Congrats to Val, as well!
[Image via WENN.]