Ever since he and Michael Cera took the leads in Superbad, Jonah Hill has been on the rise in a big way. Last year saw him take a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor opposite Brad Pitt in Moneyball, showing that he’s capable of more than comedy.
And now it looks like we’ll be getting more of his dramatic side in the years to come. Not only has he recently joined Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (set to star Leonardo DiCaprio), now Deadline report that he’s been given a part in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.
“Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award(R)-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award(R)-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles–dead or alive.”
Tarantino’s latest feature had its first trailer released earlier this month, with filming getting underway back in late March/early April, so Hill most likely won’t be on screen throughout – the role he’s taken remains unknown.
He had been considered for the part of Scotty Harmony earlier in the film’s development, the kid who loses Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie, but his schedule was too busy to fill it at the time – presumably clashing with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s The End of the World.
Though his part isn’t yet known, it is known that he won’t be playing Harmony. A few big names have recently had to exit the project – most notably, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sacha Baron Cohen – so perhaps Hill will be filling in for one of them. I’d imagine, if that were the case, Gordon-Levitt’s role would be the more likely one, simply because of Baron Cohen’s height, but that’s just speculation.
Either way, it’s great to see Hill continuing his dramatic roles, and I’m really looking forward to what he brings to the table for Tarantino.
Starring alongside him is the excellent cast of Jamix Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, and Kerry Washington. Naturally, expect nothing short of brilliance.
Django Unchained will be released in the US on Christmas Day, followed by an 18th January, 2013 release in the UK.
