In a floppy wig, various bathrobes and V-necks displaying his hairy chest and a heavenly ’70s mustache, Timothy Olyphant channels Justified‘s Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens’ energy into a debauched, seen-it-all tour manager in Prime Video’s fictional series Daisy Jones & The Six. As Rod Reyes, Olyphant gleefully solves problems with little lies and bribes, offering a small-town bus repairman free concert tickets and habitually telling Daisy (played by Riley Keough) that practice is an hour earlier than actually scheduled. When she winds up overdosing in a posh hotel shower, Reyes knows which local doctor to call to get her to the show on time.
“You put on those outfits,” the actor told Collider, referring to the standard-issue band-manager movie costume of low-waisted leather jacket and giant open collar, “and it’s easy after that.”
Reyes’ portrayal was clearly influenced by other band managers in biopics and fictional rock n’ roll movies over the years — particularly Jimmy Fallon’s Dennis Hope in 2000’s Almost Famous.
Here, we share our list of 10 memorable managers in TV shows and movies. Some are based on real-life characters who receive a percentage off the top to book bands in venues, oversee merch sales, usher artists to record label and booking-agent connections and (in the case of tour managers) handle day-to-day obligations such as repairing buses and supplying drugs.
Others are fictionalized, often drawing from the creators’ expertise (in the case of ex-Rolling Stone band chronicler Cameron Crowe, who directed Almost Famous) or Taylor Jenkins Reid (who did copious research for her novel Daisy Jones & The Six, which begat the Prime Video series.)
Read on for the band managers in TV shows and movies who made an impression.
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Ian Faith in ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ (1984)
Image Credit: Embassy Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection Not to be confused with Paul Shaffer’s Artie “Kick Me In the A–!” Fufkin, who was actually a record man, the late Tony Hendra’s Faith plays the straight man to the hard-rockers’ hijinks, complaining of a lack of sex and drugs while he locates mandolin strings in Austin and “pries the rent out of the local Hebrews.” He wields a “totemistic” cricket bat, of which he says, “To be quite frank with you, it’s come in useful in a couple of situations, certainly in the topsy-turvy world of rock.” Flashbacks then show him smashing a TV with a burst of flames, then mauling various hotel-room tables.
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Joe Jackson in ‘The Jacksons: An American Dream’ (1992)
Image Credit: ABC/courtesy Everett Collection Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs’ domineering portrayal of the Jackson 5’s infamously successful-yet-abusive father and manager peaks when he demands that Tito not marry his girlfriend, Dee Dee. And not because she’s wrong for him — because she’ll threaten the group’s marketing. “You got girls screamin’ all over you right now!” he yells. “You get married, they’re gonna look at you different!”
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Mr. White in ‘That Thing You Do!’ (1996)
Image Credit: 20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection Tom Hanks plays a fast-talking, immaculately dressed salesman who alternately soothes, compliments, dominates and dresses down his young charges in fictional early rockers the Wonders. When the band breaks up and Hanks alleges breach of contract, he shifts to avuncular warmth. “Well, don’t worry, no one’s going to prison, son,” he tells drummer Guy Patterson, played by Thomas Everett Scott. “It’s a very common tale.”
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Dennis Hope in ‘Almost Famous’ (2000)
Image Credit: DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection In his brown leather jacket, goatee and Beatle haircut, oozing with grease and carrying a silver briefcase, Fallon’s Hope character gets five crucial minutes to explain to Southern-rock heroes Stillwater why they’re getting screwed. He name-drops Mick Jagger and the late agent Frank Barsalona, and coaxes the band into selling out its principles for the big money. “I’m talking about bringing it,” he says, placing both hands dramatically on his heart, “right here.”
Honorable mention: Noah Taylor, who plays the band’s loyalist longtime manager Dick Roswell, in yet another leather jacket and an outlaw hat.
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Curtis Taylor Jr. in ‘Dreamgirls’ (2006)
Image Credit: DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection In the film adapted from the Broadway musical, Jamie Foxx’s car dealer Taylor discovers the Dreamettes at a Detroit talent show, arranges for the fictional girl group to open for an R&B star played by Oscar-nominated Eddie Murphy, signs them to his label and fulfills his promise to turn them into stars. Taylor falls into a relationship with Beyoncé’s Deena Jones, who bristles under his controlling ways.
“You can’t leave,” he says at the end.
“Why?” she snaps. “‘Cause you own me?”
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Jerry Heller in ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (2015)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection Eschewing shiny suits in favor of schlumpy open collars and undershirts, Heller is the white music-business vet who takes an interest in underground rappers N.W.A., turns them into stars and proceeds to screw them — or so Dr. Dre and others come to believe. Played by Paul Giamatti Jr., Heller develops a co-dependent relationship with Eazy-E, persuading him to stay loyal: “If I’m such a motherf–ker, how come nobody has come to collect? Because this is business.”
After the film came out, the real-life Heller sued for $110 million, alleging copyright infringement and portraying him unfairly as a “bad guy.” He died in 2016, and a judge dismissed the suit.
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Aiden Gillan in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (2018)
Image Credit: Alex Bailey Playing another version of Elton John’s manager John Reid, character actor Gillan — who memorably depicted hustlers and gamesmen in Game of Thrones and The Wire — pulls off slimy-but-properly dressed far better than Madden in Rocketman. He makes an intimidating entrance at a posh outdoor cafe, dramatically pulling up a chair in his pin-striped suit and declaring, condescendingly, “So this is Queen.”
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John Reid in ‘Rocketman’ (2019)
Image Credit: David Appleby/Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection The natty suit is about as close as Richard Madden gets to the regality of his naive, doomed king in Game of Thrones, but playing John Reid, Elton John’s oily manager and lover in the early ’70s, Madden alternates between tenderness and brutal honesty. “Get in the studio and make some music or don’t,” he screams at Taron Egerton’s John. “I don’t care.”
(Reid was John’s manager until 1998. After that, John sued him, unsuccessfully, for negligence and breach of duty, accusing Reid of stealing 20 million pounds.)
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Malcolm McLaren in ‘Pistol’ (2022)
Image Credit: Miya Mizuno/FX Networks/Courtesy Everett Collection Like Joe Jackson and Col. Tom Parker before him, the Sex Pistols’ creepily ambitious manager takes the British punk-rock pioneers to unexpected heights of popularity and helps focus them on making a great album and playing memorable concerts, but, in real life, he misappropriated money owed to the band members. (Or so a court decided after frontman John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon sued in 1979.)
Thomas Brodie-Sangster, graduate of Love Actually and The Queen’s Gambit, plays McLaren as a wide-eyed, energetic huckster who seems confused when people push back on his machinations.
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Tom Parker in ‘Elvis’ (2022)
Image Credit: Hugh Stewart/Warner Bros Although critics savaged Tom Hanks’ bizarre Dutch accent as Elvis Presley’s manager in Elvis, his character provides the film’s central tension. As in real life, Parker was a svengali, ushering the King into his $1-million-per-movie Hollywood career and negotiating the biggest Vegas-performer contract in history. Alanna Nash, Parker’s biographer, described director Baz Lurhmann’s treatment of the Colonel as “Satan in a snowman sweater” and “straight out of Faust, dripping with the evil of Mephistopheles.”
