VENICE - Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch is “very happy” to see compatriot Guy Pearce play him in a new, largely sympathetic movie about his early business life, the actor said on Sept 2.

Pearce, known for his role as a dashing detective in L.A. Confidential and lately in The Brutalist, was cast by Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle to play Murdoch in his upcoming film, Ink.

“I had some messaging with Elisabeth, his (Murdoch’s) daughter, and she did say to me, ‘Dad’s very happy that you’re playing him,’” Pearce told reporters at the Venice Film Festival, where Ink is the opening film.

“But he hadn’t seen the film at that point, so we’ll see,” Pearce added.

Hit HBO series Succession was inspired by the Murdoch family, with the ruthless and cruel patriarch Logan Roy providing a hugely unflattering portrait of the real-life billionaire.

Boyle, despite his own left-wing politics, said he had not set out to make a negative film about Murdoch, now aged 95.

The tycoon’s right-wing media empire is still a major political force in Britain, the United States and his native Australia, backing a string of conservative nationalist politicians and their agendas.

In Ink, Boyle focuses on Murdoch’s move into Britain in the late 1960s, when he bought the struggling tabloid The Sun and transformed it into a runaway success with a daily diet of sex, sport and scandal.

It is an adaptation of a play by British playwright James Graham, which ran in the West End and Broadway between 2017 and 2019.

“The stage play doesn’t... monsterise Rupert Murdoch, which, of course, a lot of people do now,” Boyle said.

“I think it’s because he represented at the time... a breath of fresh air in what was a very rigid British society. And he’s dealing with a lot of prejudice against him as an Australian, which I can understand,”...