Giuseppe Capotondi, director of upcoming movie The Burnt Orange Heresy, said Mick Jagger chose the project as the last film he wanted to make.

The Rolling Stones frontman appears as Joseph Cassidy, an art dealer who forces a young couple into attempting to steal a painting from reclusive artist Jerome Debney, played by Donald Sutherland. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year and received its first North American screening at the Toronto International Film Festival last week.

“It's a Faustian tale and Mick plays the devil who makes the deal with the art critic,” Capotondi told Billboard in a new interview. “We heard that he was looking for a last film to make and so we sent the script. He liked it and I went to London to see him. It was very unnerving before going in, but he’s just a gentle soul. He wanted to do it and then when he was on set, it was just like any other director and actor. He wasn't Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. It's working with the legend, but the good thing is that he doesn't act like one.”

Leading actor Claes Bang, who plays corrupt art critic James Figueras, added: “Obviously, before he comes on set, you're like, ‘Whoa, I might faint when I see him or something’. But on the day, if I was sitting there thinking, ‘Whoa, this is Mick Jagger,’ I probably would forget my lines. It's really about doing the job on the day. In that sense, he becomes your fellow actor on that day. That's not to diminish anything. But that's really important to me because otherwise I think I would go crazy.”

Capotondi added that Jagger had added a “very elegant and sophisticated” element to his role, which he felt “was needed,” but added that he hadn’t discussed the possibility of the singer contributing to the movie soundtrack. “He came as an actor, not as a musician, so it would have been weird to mix the two things,” he noted.

 

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