Sam Rockwell in talks to play Merle Haggard in Amazon Studios’ biopic on C&W singer

Oscar winner Sam Rockwell is in negotiations to play Merle Haggard in the biopic on the country musician and will lend his own voice to the veteran singer's standards, recorded during the 1960s

Amazon Studios has acquired a package for a film biopic of the iconic singer, with Robin Bissell directing from a script he is co-writing with Merle's widow Theresa Haggard

The film will be based on Merele's memoir "Sing Me Back Home" It will focus on Merle's time as the jail inmate at San Quentin where he watched the first prison performance of Johnny Cash, to his rise to becoming what the Country Music Hall of Fame calls "the single most influential singer-songwriter in country music history." Rockwell and Bissell recently worked together on the civil rights drama "The Best of Enemies", in which the actor played KKK leader C.P. Ellis.