Pauly Shore Will Play Richard Simmons in Biopic

Pauly Shore is taking on the role of Richard Simmons in a new biopic.

The 55-year-old actor and comedian will appear in the film is currently in development at Warner Bros. subsidiary The Wolper Organization, with additional casting underway, Variety report.

The biopic follows an unrelated short film about the fitness legend from director and writer Jake Lewis, called The Court Jester, which will premiere at Sundance this week, and also stars Pauly as Richard, as well as Tamra Brown as Ellen DeGeneres and Jesse Heiman as David, a television producer who lost 160 pounds thanks to Richard, and who tracked his weight-loss journey on the blog “Keep It Up David!” The short will be available worldwide on YouTube.

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“I’m really excited about sharing Richard Simmons’s life with the world,” Pauly said in a statement.

“We all need this biopic now more than ever. Simmons represented mental health, getting people in shape and being his authentic silly self! Whenever he was on TV you could never take your eyes off of him and he brought such a joy to his appearances that represented nothing but a good time.”

After becoming a fitness superstar, in 2014, Richard mysteriously disappeared from public life. In 2016, via a phone interview with Today, he assured the public that “no one is holding me in my house as a hostage” and he simply preferred privacy.

Richard‘s rep shared a rare update last summer.