Andre 3000 looks — and sounds — quite convincing as Jimi Hendrix in the first “All Is By My Side” biopic clip. If only the film had Hendrix’s music.
In the video, the Outkast rapper is seated next to friend Linda Keith (Imogen Poots), the legendary southpaw guitarist trying to convince her to run away with him to Monterey.
Hendrix wrote “Red House” for Linda, a woman who was used to having famous musicians write songs for her: “Keith [Richards] wrote ‘Ruby Tuesday’ for me when we broke ends off,” she tells Hendrix in the clip. “I’ve got all these men writing songs to me, and then I go home and I listen to them alone.”
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After poignant silence on the artist’s end, Linda asks Hendrix: “What is it with you rock ‘n’ rollers? You can perform for 1,000 people and you can’t be honest with one?”
“All Is By My Side,” written and directed by “12 Years a Slave” Oscar-winning scribe John Ridley, premieres in the U.S. next week at South by Southwest 2014.
The biopic, which lacks the license to feature any of Hendrix’s compositions, screens on Wed., March 12 at Austin’s Paramount Theatre.
Watch the clip: