So, the days of everyone freaking out about what type of James Bond film filmmaker Danny Boyle was working on are long gone. Since the departure of the award-winning director from that mega-franchise, we can now focus on that little project that Boyle’s been working on in the interim, his untitled comedy/musical.
READ MORE: Report: Danny Boyle Left ‘Bond 25’ Over Dispute With Star Daniel Craig
We don’t have a ton of information about the Boyle film, other than the star Himesh Patel and his co-stars Lily James (“Baby Driver,” “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”), Kate McKinnon (“SNL,” “The Spy Who Dumped Me”) and, lastly, Ed Sheeran, the pop star that has shown his acting “chops” in “Game of Thrones.”
And in a new interview (via ABC), Sheeran spills the beans about what we can expect in the Boyle film, and how exactly the stadium-filling pop star was able to balance a major role in a big film while also playing gigs.
First, the film apparently stars Patel as a singer-songwriter that wakes up one day to realize that he’s the only person in the world to remember the Beatles. And as you might expect, it appears like he uses that knowledge to become a major star.
“And then I discover him and take him on tour. Then he gets much, much bigger than me through doing stuff. Yeah, it’s very clever,” Sheeran said. “I got to actually kind of learn how to act. … With the ‘Game of Thrones’ thing, that was literally me popping in for a day and making a cameo. Or ‘Bastard Executioner‘ was me popping in for a day. But this was like full days on set, like full 12-hour days.”
“They shot it around loads of my gigs. So it was a very intense two months. Because I would have four days of gigging and then three days of shooting a film,” Sheeran continued. “I was playing myself, so I don’t think I was that bad. There wasn’t much to (mess) up.”
Sure, it’s no ‘Bond 25,’ but with a seriously interesting concept like this, told through the lens of one of the most visually striking directors working today, this comedy/musical sounds like a lot of fun. And sure, Ed Sheeran hasn’t proven himself to be much of an actor, but he can’t be that bad playing himself, right? Here’s hoping James and McKinnon can do their best to overshadow him, anyway.
There’s no release date for the untitled film, but now that his schedule has freed up, we can expect Boyle to be working full-time on this project.