To be clear, there is no R.E.M. biopic in the works. But if there were to be one, the retired band’s singer, Michael Stipe, has a predictably unpredictable choice of who might play the young version of him in such a movie were it to get greenlit. “Maybe Billie Eilish could do it,” Stipe, 66, told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on Thursday night (April 23).
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“She’d be good, kinda got similar eyes,” Colbert responded. “She’s amazing,” Stipe said of the 24-year-old “Birds of a Feather” singer. When Colbert asked if the veteran rocker had ever met Eilish, Stipe recalled that she once held a door open for him at a restaurant in Manhattan. “I don’t know if she knew who I was, she’s incredibly polite and sweet,” Stipe said, admitting that he didn’t know who Eilish was at the time either until she was already down the street a ways.
When Colbert offered to introduce them, Stipe said he’d love to meet Eilish and her brother/collaborator Finneas.
The Eilish suggestion came after Stipe had earlier said he’d definitely want someone “hot” to play him, at which point Colbert suggested fellow amply bearded man of a certain age comedian David Cross, which brought a bemused smile to the singer’s face. Colbert followed with suggestions ranging from Timothée Chalamet to J.K. Simmons.
Stipe was ostensibly on hand to talk about putting the finished touches on some of the lyrics on his long-awaited debut solo album, which would mark his first full album release since the band called it quits in 2011. “One of the songs is the sound of a tree hearing itself for the first time,” he said cryptically, explaining that a friend of his recorded the sound of a tree in his backyard in Georgia and then played it back to said tree for a song he described as Daft Punk-like.
He added that he’s also including his version of the standard sea chanty “Drunken Sailor” on the unnamed LP, which he then harmonized on with Colbert, before noting that he wrote a “very special lyric” after mishearing some words in the original. “Tie him to the mast and shave his belly/ Tie him to the mast and shave his belly/ Duct tape donkey ears, jelly wellies, early in the morning,” Stipe sang.
In honor of the clock winding down on Colbert’s late night run, Stipe said as a gift to the show he came on to perform the debut of one of the tracks from the album due out later this year, “The Rest of Ever,” a plaintive, smoldering ballad in which he sings, “I love you, oh I love you madly/ I love you more than I can say/ I need you, oh I need you badly/ I need you more and more each day.”
Watch Stipe talk biopic dream casting and see him perform “The Rest of Ever” below.
