Perhaps you’ve seen the documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston about the bi-polar songwriter. If not, the bare minimum you should know is that Johnston is one of those borderline geniuses who gained the momentary public spotlight in the early 90s when Kurt Cobain wore a t-shirt featuring the cover image of Johnston’s “Hi, How Are You” album. Even though Johnston was in a mental hospital at the time, this started a bidding war that eventually ended with Atlantic Records picking up the troubled artist.

The pop culture spotlight hit Johnston once again in 2004 when he released “The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered”, a two-disc compilation. The first disc featured popular musicians like  Bright Eyes, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, The Flaming Lips and Tom Waits covering songs written by Johnston. The second disc featured Johnston’s original recordings of the songs. Then came The Devil and Daniel Johnston documentary in 2006 and won the Director’s Award at Sundance.

Now, three years later, there is a biopic in the works from director David Miller (My Suicide) and the part of Daniel has already been cast, and - oddly - approved by Johnston himself…

Let’s meet Gabriel Sunday, a young actor currently making the festival rounds with the indie My Suicide, which has been winning awards from The Berlin Film Festival to the Gen Art Film Festival here stateside. My Suicide next screens in San Francisco at their fest.

Sunday’s upcoming roles include a part in Year One with Jack Black and Michael Cera and the role of “Steve” in Ang Lee’s Cannes-bound Taking Woodstock.

But the best way to understand Sunday might be through this YouTube video. Gabriel Sunday didn’t get the lead role in a Jennifer Lopez project because he was deemed, “Not sexually charismatic enough.” This short was his reaction:

More than a few actors and directors have made the pilgrimage to Texas to woo the Johnston family and score the movie rights to the life story of Daniel Johnston - the bipolar outsider artist and musician championed by everyone from Kurt Cobain to Tom Waits and the subject of the riveting 2006 documentary “The Devil and Daniel Johnston.”

Until now, they’ve all failed.

So what was so different about Petaluma High grad Gabe Sunday?

“I did my impression of Daniel for him and played some music with him and we hung out for a few days,” he says.

As he’s explaining it, he breaks into a high-pitched almost lispy Southern tone that sounds eerily just like Johnston. It was the equivalent of auditioning for the role and he nailed it.

“Daniel thought it was hilarious,” Sunday says. “He got a real kick out of it. I’ve been learning the piano and he calls me ‘a virtuoso on the piano.’ He’s been teaching me some songs. I was just in Texas a little while ago and I stayed with him and his brother for a couple of weeks, so I’ve actually lived with him.”

David Miller and Mr. Sunday himself spoke to our good friend David Jr at the Gen Art Film Festival about the Johnston project. Skip right to the Daniel Johnston part (it starts at 5:06) and try to avoid me making a fool out of myself with my Goosebumps book signing: