Tom Hiddleston To Play Hank Williams In 'I Saw The Light'

Tom Hiddleston wouldn't have been the first person I thought of to play country musician Hank Williams. But now that a deal is in place for that exact thing to become a reality, it actually sounds pretty good. The versatile and charming actor will play Williams in I Saw the Light, a film that will chart the singer's spectacular and damaging rise to fame at 25, and his untimely death at age 29.Deadline reports that production on I Saw the Light is set to take place in Louisiana this October. Additionally, the producers and backers of the film have managed to strike a deal with Sony to acquire rights to several Williams songs. And so Hiddleston will sing standards like 'Your Cheatin' Heart,' 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry,' and 'Hey Good Lookin'.'Marc Abraham will direct from a script he wrote inspired by Hank Williams: The Biography by Sun Records authority and general country & western music historian Colin Escott. 

Hiddleston has shown his range in films from The Avengers and Thor to War Horse and The Deep Blue Sea. Jim Jarmusch put a guitar in his hand for Only Lovers Left Alive, and there's a melancholy to that performance that could serve this film well, too.