
Jeff Buckley.
(Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty ImagesThe late musician’s mother Jeff Buckleywho drowned in the Wolf River in May 1997, had good reason to refuse To Brad Pitt request to play the singer-songwriter in a biopic years ago.
“We’ll dye your hair, put brown contacts on those baby blues, and you’ll open your mouth and Jeff’s voice will come out?” skeptic Mary Guibert said Diversity of the star in an interview published on Saturday, January 25.
Despite the fact that Pete invited Guibert to his wedding with his ex-wife Jennifer AnistonGuibert did not move. The couple went on to talk about the possibility of a film about Buckley’s life and with the director’s help Amy Bergeventually came up with the best way to pay tribute to the late musician: a documentary.
“Once I started listening to his voicemails and his DAP player and demos and reading his journals, I just couldn’t imagine it being anything other than a documentary,” Berg explained on the way out. “And I just didn’t know how you could copy Jeff in that script sense.”
The result is the documentary It never ends, Jeff Buckleywhich premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, January 24.
Son of Guibert and a musician Tim Buckleywho left when his son was six months old and later died of a drug overdose at age 28, the younger Buckley signed a three-album deal with Columbia Records in 1992. for almost $1 million. He released his only record, Grace, in 1994, but struggled to cope with the overwhelming praise from fans and musicians he admired as his idol. Bob Dylan.
His death three years later was, as Variety put it, “shrouded in mystery.” Rolling Stone published an investigation what went wrong that night, but failed to include the results of Buckley’s autopsy, something Berg believes “contributed to the legacy that Jeff probably overdosed.” Instead, the singer drowned due to the strong current of the massive river.
“One of the great things about Jeff Buckley is that you discover him when you’re meant to discover him,” Berg added of the singer, who is still perhaps best known for his cover of To Leonard Cohen “Hallelujah.”
“He’s definitely had a big impact on TikTok, where I was surprised to see that Jeff Buckley’s hashtag has more followers than even Bob Dylan,” she continued. “He definitely has another moment in pop culture history.”