Mark Kozelek to Appear in Paolo Sorrentino’s Film The Early Years, Shares Set Photos With Harvey Keitel, Paul Dano

Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon‘s Mark Kozelek will appear in The Early Years, a feature film directed by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino. It will be released in 2015. The news was revealed by Sorrentino on an Italian podcast, as IndieForBunnies points out, and confirmed by Kozelek’s publicist. 

Kozelek has previously appeared in movies such as 2000′s Almost Famous and 2001′s Vanilla Sky. You might recognize Sorrentino as the director of This Must Be The Place, which starred Sean Penn as a washed-up rock star modeled after the Cure’s Robert Smith (physically, at least). His 2011 film The Great Beauty won the Best Foreign Language film Oscar.

The Early Years stars Michael Caine as an orchestra conductor summoned out of retirement to perform for the Queen of England. It also stars Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda, and Harvey Keitel. That’s Kozelek with Keitel above—find photos of him with Sorrentino and Dano (respectively) below. All were taken on the film’s set in Switzerland.

In the film, Kozelek plays a friend of Dano’s character. He told us, via email, about the experience of working on the film, saying he was drawn to the role because it was “six weeks in one location and not having to carry my guitar and suitcase around every day”.

Plus it was a great cast and Paulo is a great director. it was a nice diversion away from what I typically do. I couldn’t pass it up.

Paolo reached out and I met him in Rome while I was there on tour this past April. He was a fan of my music, and I liked his last film The Great Beauty, quite a bit.

We shot long hours, from 7 pm to 5:00 a.m. and it was pretty cold out there in the Swiss alps! But it was an honor to spend time with actors like Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, and Harvey Keitel. Harvey is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever been around and we hit it off on both being Lou Reed fans. Paul Dano and I hit it off pretty well, also. He loves music and he’s also very focused. It was an inspiring cast to be around.

He also revealed that his cover of Yes’ “Onward” from Like Rats and his song “Ceiling Gazing” were contributed to be used in the film, though he’s not sure if either will be cut from the movie. 

Kozelek also said that he’s scoring  The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone’s upcoming film The Pretenders, which he may also appear in. That film stars Michael B. Jordan, Anton Yelchin, and Imogen Poots.

Read our interview with Kozelek from earlier this year, and watch Sun Kil Moon perform “Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes” at Pitchfork Music Festival:

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