Manson is getting ecumenical in a new role on HBO's The New Pope.
Although Marilyn Manson is most widely known for his music, his talents range from producer to author to artist. Now, he will apparently focus on his acting, as it's been announced that he will star in HBO’s upcoming TV series The New Pope.
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, The New Pope will follow the series The Young Pope, an Italian-Spanish-French drama that revolves around a fictitious American pope who rules much like a fascist and wants to radicalize the Catholic church. Marilyn’s role is still unknown, but surely it will match the mysterious tone of the show.
Marilyn’s first role in film was in 1997's Lost Highway, directed by David Lynch. Marilyn fit right into the morbid world that Lynch constructed, starring in a brief scene in which he nakedly and dramatically falls into a seizure. Since then, he has appeared in countless movies and television shows, with highlights including Jawbreaker in 1999 (the film featuring his then-wife Rose McGowan), Californication in 2013, Sons of Anarchy in 2014, and Salem in 2016. All these roles required elaborate looks like goth makeup, tattoos, prison outfits, and even a mustache. Marilyn’s self-expression has always been unique, and it will surely come through in this new role, whatever it may be.
It’s no surprise that Marilyn can act. His live performances have never been less than giant, theatrical productions (though sometimes they don’t go as planned), and his image has always had a cartoonish essence to it in a villainous sort of way. In a chat we had with Marilyn where we asked him to rank his own albums, he had no trouble admitting about his album The High End Of Low, “This was when I went insane, for real. I think I had a psychotic breakdown making this. Those pictures of the crazy writing on my walls? That wasn’t for a photo shoot, that was how I lived at the time.”
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