HBO Making Montgomery Clift Biopic with Matt Bomer

Matt Bomer has found a new career surge at HBO. Last year, he gained an Emmy nomination and a Critics Choice TV Award win for his part in The Normal Heart, and now he is set to star as one of the more enigmatic figures of Golden Age Hollywood: Montgomery Clift.

In a project that not unlike The Normal Heart, Monty Clift was originally shopped around Hollywood as a film feature before HBO packaged the deal up with Bomer attached to star in the titular lead role of Hollywood’s first independent actor.

Clift had originally made his name on the stage as a Broadway actor in New York, where he began performing at the age of 15. His first film role in The Search earned him an Oscar nomination, and in his second (a personal favorite) he starred opposite an extra-crotchety and volatile John Wayne for Howard Hawks’ Red River.

He soon was rivaling the likes of Marlon Brando for young leading parts, such as the doomed soldier of From Here to Eternity and as Father Michael Logan in Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess. However, despite being a sex symbol for the studios, Clift battled them by refusing to sign with any major studio, instead opting to be essentially a free agent. He also battled his likely bisexuality for much of his life. After a car accident left his face partially disfigured, he still continued acting (and drinking) until his death in 1966.

The film was originally set to be directed by Larry Moss and written by Christopher Lovick as a feature, but as reported by Deadline, financing fell apart. The film is now due to be rewritten by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias of Love is Strange and Married Life for HBO.