BEING A BEACH BOY
Hunky New Zealand actor James Trevena-Brown built on his success in the Auckland-filmed The Shannara
Chronicles and moved to Hollywood to chase his dreams in 2016. Now his surferboy looks have landed him a role playing one of the legendary Beach Boys in the upcoming Charles Manson biopic, Charlie Says.
Trevena-Brown, 31, is set to play Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, who was friends with Manson, the infamous cult leader who created the Manson family and led them on a murder spree in 1969. Former
Dr Who star Matt Smith (The Crown’s
Prince Philip) plays Manson.
The movie — based on Ed Sanders’ 1971 best-selling book The Family and Karlene Faith’s The Long Prison Journey of Leslie
Van Houten — is written by Guinevere Turner and directed by American Psycho filmmaker Mary Harron. The film follows the three young women sentenced to life in prison after the 1969 murders organised by Manson. They will be played by Suki Waterhouse, Carla Gugino and
Game of Thrones’ Gilly, Hannah Murray. When his role was announced this week, Trevena-Brown posted to social media that it was an honour to work with “these crazy, awesome, talented humans on and off screen”.
Manson, whose evil crime scared and scarred Hollywood, died last November, and in true Hollywood style, a rush of projects are coming, most notably a another film project by director Quentin Tarantino, with Hollywood superstar Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role.