KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 — Hollywood actor Dave Franco is gearing up to “rock a mic like a vandal” to play Vanilla Ice in the upcoming biopic about the 90s rapper in To the Extreme.
In a recent interview with Insider, the 35-year-old actor said that he envisioned the project to be like 2017’s The Disaster Artist, which starred him and his older brother James Franco, and centred on the making of actor Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.
“With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau, but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was — that's the tone we want for this one as well,” said Franco.
Speaking about the To the Extreme biopic, Franco said it will highlight the rapper’s rise from a high school dropout selling cars in Dallas to having the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts with Ice Ice Baby — the definitive 90s era Cinderella story.
Named after Vanilla Ice's album that spent 16 weeks atop the Billboard charts and sold 15 million albums worldwide, To The Extreme was written by screenwriters Chris Goodwin and Phillip Van.
However, the project still has no director attached or a start date due to the global pandemic.
Despite the lag caused by the outbreak, Franco said he’s had several phone calls with Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, while he’s been stuck at home.
“Rob is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he’s been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn’t know.
“Just talking to him I can’t help but think about the rabbit holes I’m going to go down to get ready for the role,” he added.
Franco also hinted that they have been in development for a while and are inching closer to pre production.
For now, Franco is all set for the July 24 release of The Rental, his directorial debut starring his wife Alison Brie.
