Jeff Buckley.
(Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesThe mother of the late musician Jeff Buckleywho drowned in the Wolf River in May 1997, had good reason to refuse That of Brad Pitt request to play the singer-songwriter in a biopic years ago.
“We’re going to dye your hair, put brown contact lenses on those baby blues, and you’re going to open your mouth and Jeff’s voice is going to come out?” a skeptic Marie Guibert said Variety of the star in an interview published Saturday January 25.
From Jeremy Allen White’s upcoming film about Bruce Springsteen to Timothée Chalamet showing off his Bob Dylan voice in A Complete Unknown, music biopics seem to be everywhere. However, these films are not a new phenomenon. Films centered on the lives of music icons have captivated audiences for decades, from Coal Miner’s Daughter in the 1980s, to […]
Despite the fact that Pitt invited Guibert to his wedding with his ex-wife Jennifer AnistonGuibert did not give up. The two men kept talking about the possibility of a film about Buckley’s life and, with the director’s help Amy Bergfinally landed on the best way to pay tribute to the late musician: a documentary.
“Once I started listening to his voicemails, his DAP player, his demos and reading his diaries, I just couldn’t imagine it being anything other than a documentary,” Berg told the outlet. “And I just didn’t know how you could kind of replicate Jeff in that scripted sense.”
The result is the documentary It’s never over, Jeff Buckleywhich premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, January 24.
Guibert’s son and musician Tim Buckleywho left when his son was six months old and later died of a drug overdose at age 28, the younger Buckley signed a three-album deal with Columbia Records in 1992 for nearly $1 million. He released his only record, Grace, in 1994, but struggled to deal with the massive praise from his fans and musicians he admired, such as his idol. Bob Dylan.
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His death three years later was, as Variety put it, “shrouded in mystery.” rolling stone published an investigation about what went wrong that night, but did not include the results of Buckley’s autopsy, something that Berg said “contributed to the legacy that Jeff probably did a overdose.” Instead, the singer drowned due to the strong surf of the river.
“One of the great things about Jeff Buckley is that you discover him when you’re supposed to discover him,” Berg also said of the singer, who is perhaps still best known for his cover of that of Leonard Cohen “Alleluia.”
“He’s definitely made a big impact on TikTok, where I was surprised to see that he has more followers on the Jeff Buckley hashtag than even Bob Dylan,” she continued. “He’s definitely having another moment in pop culture history.”
