Timothy Olyphant looks to be closing in on his next major role now that his JUSTIFIED TV series is ramping down - he’s joining Oliver Stone’s upcoming Edward Snowden film.
Olyphant will play a CIA agent who befriended Snowden before the latter fled to Russia seeking asylum after making public more classified documents than anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.
…says THIS piece over at Deadline.
Olyphant will join the already announced Joseph Gordon-Levitt (playing Snowden), Melissa Leo, and Shailene Woodley.
Based chiefly upon two books (THE SNOWDEN FILES and TIME OF THE OCTOPUS), the picture is scripted by Stone and Kieran Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was recently a writer on the Tommy Lee Jones co-scripted/starring/directed THE HOMESMAN, which didn’t receive a release anywhere near as wide as it deserved, but is now streaming on iTunes and Amazon. It’s a rather affecting and very well made picture also starring Hilary Swank, Barry Corbin, John Lithgow, James Spader, William Fichtner, Miranda Otto, and Meryl Streep. I mean…that cast alone is a rather amazing accomplishment in itself, no?
DP Rodrigo Prieto (THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, ARGO, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) potently visualizes ‘the Old West in a way we’ve never quite seen on screen (almost a stylized, surreal, opposite-of-dirty approach), and Marco Beltrami's score is smart and inventive. THE HOMESMAN is elegant but not artsy, substantive but doesn’t dwell on its multitude of complex themes, and utterly earnest in every regard. Consider checking it out - it’s not getting the attention it warrants, but I suspect this one will have a healthy, lengthy afterlife as it is oh-so-slowy discovered.
Stone’s Snowden opus is expected on screens in 2016. By the way, while I’m not sure I would wholly recommend the amiable but strangely vacant film, Olyphant’s performance in THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU (I didn’t realize he was in it until I saw it earlier this week) is rather understated and touching. Well done…
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Glen Oliver
“Merrick”
