It makes sense that the troubled actress Lindsay Lohan wants to resurrect her stalled movie career by purchasing the screen rights to Stevie Nicks's life story. Nicks, the singer of Fleetwood Mac and solo artist, also suffered from personal problems which took her years to overcome. However the fiery musician has said that the 24 year-old actress will have to turn her life around before stepping into her shoes.
"That's never going to happen unless she cleans up her life and becomes the great actress I feel she can be," Nicks told CNN.
It's another reminder that biopics can create almost as much drama off the screen as they depict on it - but when it works out, the results are worth it. It is one of Hollywood's most dependable genres when it comes to box office and Oscar success. In the past 20 years alone, seven best-film Oscars were given to either biopics or movies involving real-life characters.
However, behind the acceptance speeches it is easy to forget the effect such portrayals can have on either the real person or surviving family members.
Nicks is probably right to be picky about whom she grants her film rights to - an unflattering portrayal or performance could affect her musical stock. Just ask the rapper Lil' Kim, who saw her stature as the first lady of hip-hop take a blow with the 2009 release of the much-anticipated Notorious, a biopic on the life of the murdered gangster rapper Notorious BIG.
Kim, who built her successful rap career on the back of her cultivated image of being a tough-minded female in hip-hop's male jungle, was portrayed in the film as a mere opportunist.
She took understandable offence at the portrayal of her relationship with Christopher Wallace (the Notorious BIG's real name), describing it simply as "false". Bizarrely, Kim went on to state that the late rapper appeared in her dreams, expressing his dissatisfaction with the movie.
"Let me tell you something, the way [Wallace] is feeling is going to come out later," she told the Rap Radar website. "You're going to see who he really loved and the ones that's standing up for him the right way is the ones representing him the right way."
Another person unhappy with his on-screen persona is the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. While the biopic The Social Network was critically acclaimed as one of the best films of last year, Zuckerberg was angry at the film's suggestion that he initially created the Facebook site as simply a way to gain female attention.
"Basically the framing is that the whole reason for making Facebook is because I wanted to get girls, or wanted to get into clubs," he told a Stanford University audience. "[The film's creators] just can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things."
The 27-year-old Zuckerberg is young enough not to need to fret about The Social Network ruining his legacy, something that concerns politicians a great deal. Political biopics continue to remain controversial with filmmakers often being forced to defend charges from the protagonist's estate of introducing factual inaccuracies or even attempting to change history.
Director Oliver Stone's Nixon was described by the former US president's family as a "character assassination", and this was based on family members reading the script before the film's release.
However when it comes to the sports biopic, particularly in emotive and ego-driven affairs such as boxing, filmmakers could find themselves ducking more than mere criticism.
While many praised Denzel Washington's performance as the boxer Ruben Carter in the 1999 film Hurricane, the former middleweight boxing champion Joey Giardello was far from impressed at the way his fight with Carter was portrayed.
In his lawsuit against Universal Pictures, he claimed the film depicted his 1964 victory as being aided by the fight judges' racial prejudice against Carter.
Giardello was particularly angry about the way the film depicted him as being "relentlessly pummelled" by Carter and stated "virtually every boxing expert then and now will tell you I won the fight."
Giardello's suit was dropped after a settlement that included financial compensation and the director Norman Jewison's praise on camera, in the film's DVD release, of the boxer's great sporting prowess.
Of course, all of this may have had nothing to do with Nicks's refusal to sign away her life story to Lohan. Instead it could be a genuine attempt to encourage the troubled actress to get back on track.
As for Lohan, she has just started a jail sentence under house arrest, which could have a bigger impact on her Hollywood career than a rock diva's blessing.
