Machine Gun Kelly would visit Tommy Lee to seek his advice about parts of the script for upcoming Motley Crue biopic The Dirt.
The actor/rapper, real name Richard Colson Baker, plays the drummer in the biographical drama, based on the band's 2001 autobiography The Dirt: Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, alongside Douglas Booth as Nikki Sixx, Daniel Webber as Vince Neil, and Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon as Mick Mars.
Machine Gun Kelly shot the film in Louisiana earlier this year and admitted that he would regularly seek Lee's advice over points in the script he wasn't sure about.
"I would pull up to his house. I remember throwing the script in his lap one time and was like, 'Dude, this is such a weird... this couldn't have gone down like this.' He was like, 'Nah dude, it was just like this,'" he recalled to Billboard.
"And I'd be like, 'Well, say it how you said it', and he said it, and it was like, 'That's exactly how I would have said it.' We’re so similar, it wasn’t too far from home for me.”
The 28-year-old acknowledged that there is probably somebody who looks more like Lee than he does, but he is certain he has the right attitude for the job.
"It's about the aura," he explained. "I'm sure there's someone who looks identical to Tommy... but you can't be an actor and play Tommy Lee, dude, you have to be a rockstar. There was only one fit for that role."
To prepare for the part, the Bad Things hitmaker took drum lessons and the cast were brought down to New Orleans a month before the shoot and lived together, so they felt like "best friends" when production actually began.
"Aside from the obvious of taking drum lessons and taking that seriously, I just went and lived the lifestyle that he was living," he added.
Besides The Dirt, Machine Gun Kelly has completed work on sci-fi thrillers Captive State and Bird Box, and is currently filming Big Time Adolescence. After that, he plans to focus on music career once again.
