Stardust imagines a doomed three-week promotional trip the young singer made in 1971 when trying - and failing - to break America with his third studio LP, The Man Who Sold The World.
Despite contact lenses and fake teeth, some critics have unkindly remarked on the fact that Johnny is not the spitting image of Bowie.
Such is the ardour of some fans that he has been attacked online, having admitted: I m convinced that people are innately good, but this period has been tough for that perspective. I ve been attacked online, sometimes quite violently, you know, people saying, Let s go and string up Johnny Flynn, let s go and beat up Johnny Flynn .
Johnny Flynn on the challenges of playing David Bowie
11 minutes to read
By: Will Hodgkinson
Johnny Flynn turned down the role of David Bowie in a new film. The British actor tells Will Hodgkinson why he then changed his mind. Who would play David Bowie in a movie? Any film about a beloved rock star runs the risk of creating an image that clashes with the one in the minds of fans, but with Bowie that danger reaches another level. He was everything from the alien rock god Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke of the mid-Seventies to the Goblin King of the 1986 kids classic, Labyrinth. Idolisation of Bowie has gone into the realm of deification. When he left us in January 2016 it came as a seismic shock, not least because he seemed too clever to fall victim to something as mundane as death.
Johnny Flynn on David Bowie biopic Stardust : I got violent hate mail nme.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nme.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.