(Left to right:) Pauly Shore in 2023, Richard Simmons in 2013.Photo:VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty
VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty; Jason Kempin/Getty
Fitness guruRichard Simmonsis getting the biopic treatment — with a lookalike actor playing him.
Pauly Shore, who in September said he “can definitely morph into” Simmons in response to a viral meme, will play the media icon in a feature-length film from Warner Bros. subsidiary The Wolper Organization, perThe Hollywood Reporterand other outlets.
The news coincides with Shore’s short filmThe Court Jesterin which he plays Simmons, 75. The short premieres this week in Park City, Utah during the2024 Sundance Film Festival.
In September, theEncino Manactor told PEOPLE he and Simmons were friends back in the day. “I would always see him driving his Rolls Royce down Sunset Boulevard in the ’80s and ’90s, waving to everyone, and he’d always pull over and say hi,” Shore recalls. “We’d mess around, and he’d come and see mymom Mitziat the Comedy Store. It was just mutual joy when we’d see each other.”
He and Simmons are “both very physical, we’re both over the top and silly,” he told PEOPLE. “So there are all those parallels that make sense."
Pauly Shore as Richard Simmons in “The Court Jester”.Emil Gurvin
Emil Gurvin
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Speaking toEntertainment Weeklyin an interview posted Wednesday, Shore said “Iamhim” in regards to Simmons. “I like helping people. I like health. I like putting that energy out there.”
Simmons rose to prominence in the 1980s with his series ofSweatin' to the Oldiesaerobics videos. Hehasn’t been seen in the public eyesince 2014.
“My brother is fine,” his older brotherLenny Simmons told PEOPLEin 2017. “He’s not sick. There’s nothing medically wrong with him at all.”
Asked whether he communicated with Simmons about playing him in the feature-length project, Shore toldEW, “His people responded and they said that he loves me… but at this time he just wants to lay low and not really be involved. That was his response.”
The actor added, “My attitude is: If we build it, he’ll come. That’s my hope. My hope is that he sees that it looks good, it feels good, it’s right. And then he might just say, f— it at some point — ‘I’m down. I’ll help you guys, I’ll be part of it.’”
Shore’s most recent live-action credit was the 2021 filmHow It Ends, in which he appeared as himself.
source: people.com
