Metallica frontman James Hetfield will be trading in his guitar for a police badge. No, Hetfield isn’t joining law enforcement, but rather he’ll be featured in the upcoming Ted Bundy biopic “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, And Vile,” according to a Monday announcement.
The Grammy-winning artist will be playing Officer Bob Hayward, a no-nonsense Utah highway patrol veteran who was the first officer to arrest Bundy in 1975 after pulling the killer over and discovering burglary tools in his car but wisely suspecting much worse.
Though he is famously featured in the 2004 Metallica documentary “Some Kind of Monster,” this will be Hetfield’s first fictional, non-animated role onscreen. “Some Kind of Monster” chronicled Hetfield’s battle with alcoholism and other problems that surrounded the recording of 2003’s “St. Anger” album. He also voiced the role of Wolfgang in the animated Netflix series “Skylanders Academy.”
“Having spent hundreds of hours behind the scenes with James and the rest of Metallica, I have experienced his charisma and powerful presence close up,” said director Joe Berlinger. “It seemed only natural that he would bring that same power and magnetism to a dramatic role, so when he agreed to my pitch that he be in the movie, I was thrilled.”
Golden Globe and multiple Emmy Award winner Jim Parsons and Academy Award nominees Haley Joel Osment and John Malkovich have also recently joined the cast along with Kaya Scodelario, Angela Sarafyan, Jeffrey Donovan Terry Kinney and Dylan Baker.