Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Exclusive: Christopher Walken to Play Ozzy Osbourne

Motley Crue's 'The Dirt' Gears Up for Wild Rock Film

Chris Walken and Ozzy Osbourne

LAS VEGAS, Nov. 6, 2006 — - Hide the Bats! Christopher Walken has agreed to play the ultimate bad-boy rocker -- Ozzy Osbourne..

Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil told ABC News Radio in an exclusive interview that the 63-year-old Oscar-winning actor will make a cameo appearance as Osbourne in "The Dirt," a movie based on the band's controversial 2001 autobiography.

"How funny is that going to be," Neil told ABC's Al Mancini at the Opening of Vince Neil Ink, the singer's new tattoo parlor in Las Vegas.

Walken's press representatives did not immediately return a call to ABCNEWS.com for comment.

"The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band" set new limits in tell-all confessionals. The 448-page tome catalogues the drug and alcohol abuse, nasty infighting, and sex parties of Neil and band mates Tommy Lee, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx.

The film, announced in April, is now in preproduction and is expected to be released in 2008 by Paramount and MTV. It's been billed as a true-life version of "This Is Spinal Tap."

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Osbourne toured with Motley Crue and was friends with the band, and his antics, as recounted in the book, include snorting a line of live ants (while looking for a fix of cocaine) and taking LSD every day for a year "just to see what would happen."

Neil says that other stars are going to appear in the film as rock stars, including Val Kilmer as David Lee Roth. "We're doing big, giant cameos with those people," he says.

As for Neil and his Crue, they'll be played by unknowns.