Jonah Hill shares inspiring story behind playing Jerry Garcia in Grateful Dead biopic

Jonah Hill wore a purple beanie cap with "SCI-FI FANTASY" written on it while visiting "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," and for at least a moment in time, he felt like the possibility of him portraying the late Jerry Garcia would only ever be a sci-fi fantasy in his head.

The two-time Oscar nominee explained how it came to be that he will be playing Garcia in a forthcoming Apple biopic directed by Martin Scorsese — news that first emerged last month.

"This is a cool story that I'll tell if anyone's watching that needs to improve their voice of self-doubt in their heads. I do. I suffer from it," Hill, 37, said. "COVID started. I started my company, Strong Baby Productions, and we had just started the company. I'm on Instagram. COVID just started, we're all stuck in our houses, and I see this picture of Jerry Garcia when he's young, and I'm like, 'Wow, why has nobody done this? Why hasn't anyone made a movie? I could play Jerry Garcia.'"

Hill continued: 

"And then I spend the next hour and a half talking myself out of it. Being like, 'Don't show anyone this! Don't say this! You're gonna sound insane. You're not good enough. You're not this, you're not that. He's an icon. It's just a picture.' And I finally did the work in my head to go, 'No, share it with the people you work with.' So, I sent it to my company and my manager, Rick, and they were like, 'This is a great idea!' And then Rick manages Martin Scorsese, and we worked together on 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' and he said, 'You know who would love this is Martin Scorsese.' ... And then, Marty said yes! He wanted to direct a movie about the Grateful Dead with me playing Jerry Garcia. It goes [from], 'I shouldn't even send this because I'm not valuable enough to even express an idea,' to having your hero direct a movie about your other hero. It's a beautiful story."