ODB Movie 'Dirty White Boy' To Star Wu-Tang Members & Michael K. Williams

The Ol' Dirty Bastard movie Dirty White Boy will reportedly star Wu-Tang Clan members as themselves, while Michael K. Williams (aka Omar from The Wire) will play the ODB himself.

Williams told the New York Daily News that the film's producers want the biopic to feature original Wu-Tang members as themselves, so it looks like it's back to the slums of Shaolin with the RZA, the GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, the Ghostface Killah, Method Man and Masta Killa.

Williams told the Daily News the film's creators have no desire to cast any actors as the Wu-Tang other than himself, so it could turn out to be quite the reunion. He said for the film to work as planned, we need all hands on deck.

No Wu members have confirmed their appearance in the film, but several of them have film careers already, most notably RZA (he gave a great performance alongside Denzel Washington in American Gangster) and Method Man (recall his interesting character in Garden State), both of whom have appeared in a number of movies.

The film is expected to tell the tale of ODB's troubled personal life, exploring his relationship with his manager Jarred Weisfeld, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The paper said the movie also is expected to delve into his addictions, which are believed to have included cocaine, marijuana and alcohol.

Michael K. Williams explained it further in a conversation with MTV:

If you know ODB, there's going to be some comedy, but we're not playing to that, he said. It's going to be shot as a serious piece, no buffoonery, for lack of a better word. It's only going to cover the last two years of his life when he was released from prison to the day he died. It's just an insight into what he struggled with in the public eye.

Williams also discussed with MTV his process for getting into the part of ODB (real name: Russell Jones) for the film, to be directed by Joaquin Baca-Asay:

I am doing a lot of research on Russell, Williams said. I had the pleasure of meeting his beautiful mother, Ms. Cherry. We sat down for, like, three hours, and she told me the most amazing stuff about her son and a lot of things that the public didn't know. I've been talking to people who know him well ... people who knew him when the cameras weren't rolling. I've got a lot of insight into who he was as a human being and as a man and, dare I say it, scholar. The dude was quite smart. You have to be able to recite mathematics and be 5 percent of god body -- you can't play with that. You have to know what you're talking about. It's a lot of studying, a lot of knowledge.