The team behind Jimmy has released a clip from the film, and it is built around the moment the whole story turns on: director Frank Capra, played by Max Casella, pitching Jimmy Stewart the role of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Capra lays out the story he has optioned, a Christmas picture about a man named George Bailey who believes his life has amounted to nothing. An angel named Clarence is sent down to help him, a trainee still trying to earn his wings. Capra corrects himself as he goes, sorting the details out loud: no cliff, a bridge, and Clarence jumping in first to stop him, appearing in his long underwear from 1845. He admits freely that he is not selling it right, then lands on why he believes in it anyway, predicting the film will be timeless and still remembered a hundred years from now. Stewart, played by KJ Apa, has been listening, and he answers with the words that give the film its name: “It’s a wonderful life.”
Watch the clip below.
Jimmy follows Stewart across the most dramatic stretch of his life, from his Academy Award win for The Philadelphia Story to his service as a combat pilot in World War II, flying 20 missions over Europe and rising to the rank of colonel, and then home again, a changed man, to find George Bailey waiting for him. Aaron Burns directed the film from a script by Justin Strawhand, and Stewart’s daughter Kelly Stewart Harcourt serves as an executive producer. The cast around Apa and Casella includes Jason Alexander as Louis B. Mayer, Neal McDonough as Stewart’s father Alexander, Christopher McDonald as Lionel Barrymore, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper and Jen Lilley as Gloria Stewart.
The film’s official account first shared the scene on TikTok, billing it as a look at the origin story behind the classic. Jimmy opens in theaters nationwide on November 6 through Fathom Entertainment.