"Tommy is like the puppy dog of the group."


Machine Gun Kelly has discussed the prospect of playing Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee in a new biopic that tells the story of the notorious rock icons.

The rapper will play Lee in The Dirt – alongside Douglas Booth as Nikki Sixx, Daniel Webber as singer Vince Neil and Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon as guitarist Mick Mars.

In a new interview with Billboard, Kelly likened Lee to a “puppy dog” and explained how his depiction was inspired by the flaws in Lee’s character.


“Tommy is like the puppy dog of the group. He makes mistakes, but you kind of love him more when he’s making mistakes,” he explained.

As for the rest of the cast, Kelly recalled how the first night after filming got unexpectedly out of hand when Douglas Booth opted to sink his teeth into director Jeff Tremaine.

“Our first night together in New Orleans, [director] Jeff Tremaine demanded that we go out and have beers and really bond,” he recalled.

“Within the first 30 minutes, Doug was like, “I’m Nikki Sixx, bitch!” and bit [Tremaine’s] shoulder so hard he still has bite marks and purple rings around the bite marks. As soon as Doug bit the director, we knew that it was going to be a ride.”

The film itself is an adaptation of Motley Crue’s biography of the same name – which Kelly previously read as a teenager.

“When you’re 13, you don’t really understand problems too much, so you’re just looking at all the things that glitter. It wasn’t until we were on set and doing these scenes that we were like, ‘Whoa, this is dark. What are people going to think about this?'” he explained.

“But there’s something about the truth in that book — the fact that you do fall in love with these people [who] then do this giant nose dive into this dark place.”

Meanwhile, Machine Gun Kelly recently said goodbye to 2018 by aiming one final shot at Eminem in their ongoing feud.