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Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play a man with 24 different personalities in “The Crowded Room”.
The actor will play Billy Milligan, the first person to successfully use multiple personality disorder as a defense in a court of law.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, DiCaprio has been eyeing the role for the past 20 years and has finally got the project off the ground with his Appian Way on board to produce with New Regency and Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg set to adapt the script.
The film is based on Daniel Keyes’ 1981 nonfiction book “The Minds of Billy Milligan”. DiCaprio will produce with Jennifer Davisson and Alexandra Milchan.
Via THR, “Published in 1981, Keyes’ book chronicles Milligan’s story, including his court trial in the late 1970s in Ohio after being charged with robbery and raping three women on the Ohio State University campus.
In the preparation of his defense, Milligan — who died in December 2014 — was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Pleading insanity, he and his lawyers contended that two of his alternate personalities committed the crimes without his knowledge. He was the first to use this defense, and the first to be acquitted for this reason.
Milligan’s various personalities included Adalana, a lesbian taking responsibility for the rapes; Ragen, a Yugoslavian communist who admitted to the robbery; and Arthur, an uptight Englishman.”
