Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson says he hopes audiences will take away the emotional pain he's been through when they watch Love & Mercy, a new biopic of his life.
In an interview with the Toronto Star, he added: "And if they’re going through something, hopefully they can identify with my pain.”
The 72-year-old says that watching his life story on the big screen in front of an audience of 2,000 at the Toronto International Film Festival last year was “quite strange" and "kind of scary.”
Love & Mercy, which opens in the US this week, stars Paul Dano as the 1960s-era Wilson, during the period when the Beach Boys were recording their seminal Pet Sounds album.
The new film portrays how rows over musical direction regularly erupted with Wilson's cousin and group frontman Mike Love, who is played by Jake Abel.
Meanwhile, Wilson's father Murry (Bill Camp) is none too kind, putting down his creative son and Brian's mental problems worsen due to increased drug consumption.
Wilson's involvement with Love and Mercy was brief but significant, according to director Bill Pohlad.
“Brian’s not super-social, so we dealt more with Melinda, but we set up a table read of the script for him. He would close his eyes and it looked like he was falling asleep. I thought, ‘We’re losing him.’
Yet Wilson duly presented the director with a bunch of notes that were "really insightful. Not only was he listening, but he was really tracking with it.”
