Kate Winslet as John Lennon’s Mum?

John Lennon (age 17) and Quarrymen manager Nigel Walley (1958)

First-time feature director Sam Taylor-Wood wants Kate Winslet for her new John Lennon bio, Nowhere Boy, focusing “on the lonely teenage years of the future Beatle, who was raised by his authoritarian aunt after being abandoned by his mother.”

Taylor-Wood, who will be making her feature debut on the project, will shoot on location in Liverpool in the area where Lennon grew up. Casting is said to be underway on the project, and the Daily Mail reports today that Kate Winslet is being encouraged to audition for the role of Lennon’s mother, Julia.

“The women in John’s early life truly shaped who he became,” Taylor-Wood told the Hollywood Reporter. “And the strengths and weaknesses of their relationships are central to this film.” (Guardian UK)

Taylor-Wood has collaborated with Pet Shop Boys and has established a respectable euro festival pedigree. I 2002, she won the Illy Caf√© Prize for Most Promising Young Artist at the 47th Venice Biennale, and this year her short film, Love You More, (produced by Anthony Minghella) was nominated for the short-film Palme d’Or at Cannes. Artist-directors range from Julian Schnabel to Andy Warhol. Julie Taymor seemed to take her stunningly beautiful Beatles-based film in the other direction — her collage of a movie had roots with Les Fauves and unfolded like a gallery survey of modern art -isms. It’ll be interesting to see where Sam Taylor-Wood falls along that spectrum of visual expressionism.

Even more interesting to see who’ll be chosen to play young Lennon. Any ideas?