See Billy Zane Transform into Marlon Brando in First Trailer forWaltzing with Brando

Mar. 15, 2025

Marlon Brando (left); Billy Zane.Photo:Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty, Camille Razat/Instagram

Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty, Camille Razat/Instagram

Billy Zaneis channelingMarlon Brandofor his latest film.

The first trailer for Zane’s new filmWaltzing with Brando,a biopic that follows Brando during the 1970sand shows glimpses of his time transforming an uninhabited island in Tahiti into his new home, premiered on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

The trailer offers glimpses of Zane, 58, starring as Brando in some of his most infamous films includingLast Tango in ParisandThe Godfather,and it also takes viewers behind-the-scenes of his life as a Hollywood star. The trailer juxtaposes Brando’s hectic Hollywood life with the tranquility of relaxing at his island home.

The next several clips show Brando’s efforts — some of which seemingly fail — to make the island hospitable. In one clip, the actor says he’s working on a “process to bring clean, drinkable water to the island” using his “own urine.”

“To live out there with even a moderate amount of convenience would be a monumental undertaking,”Jon Heder’s architect character says at one point.

The trailer shows the pair’s various attempts to revamp Brando’s island home, including showing Zane using a bulldozer as workers dig up areas around the island. Another scene depicts an incident in which an airplane landed close to Heder’s character’s head during the renovation process.

Billy Zane as Marlon Brando inWaltzing with Brando.Courtesy Torino Film Festival

Courtesy Torino Film Festival

The film — which is an adaptation of Bernard Judge’s 2011 memoir of the same name — and tells the story “of a young Los Angeles architect who found himself, quite unexpectedly, living on an unpopulated atoll in the South Pacific with his client, Marlon Brando.”

Judge was an award-winning architect whose innovations in building focused on environmental sustainability. Brando hired him to construct a home on the 12-island atoll of Tetiaroa, Tahiti. He died in 2021, nearly two decades after Brando died in 2004.

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Zane described the new movie to the outlet as “a love letter to Tahiti, and [Brando] and his passion."

In addition to theTitanicactor,Waltzing with Brandocostars Tia Carrere,Richard Dreyfuss, Heder, Alaina Huffman, Rob Corddry and more.

source: people.com