Daniel Radcliffe to play Allen Ginsberg in new film

Daniel Radcliffe
10 April 2012

Daniel Radcliffe is to play legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in new movie Kill Your Darlings.

The Harry Potter star will start shooting the film - which will be written and directed by John Krokidas - after his run in the Broadway play How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.

The project was initially announced in 2009 with Jesse Eisenberg originally billed to play Ginsberg with Chris Evans as poet/novelist Jack Kerouac and Ben Whishaw as Lucien Carr, another key figure in the Beat movement.

It is not known if Evans and Wishaw are still attached to the project.

The film - which is based on real events - revolves around the relationship between Ginsberg, Kerouac and Carr.

Ginsberg - who was openly gay - was a leading figure of the Beat Generation in 1940s and 1950s New York City, a movement that was highly critical of American materialism, censorship and conformity.

His friendship with fellow writer Kerouac began when the men were introduced by Carr, who shared a dorm with Ginsberg at Columbia University. Carr was later sentenced to first-degree manslaughter for killing David Kammerer, a friend of fellow Beat Generation figure William S. Burroughs who had become infatuated with him.

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