Emile Hirsch certainly isn't predictable. The actor has vacillated from indie movies to blockbusters to everything in between, and you only have to look at his recent batch of films — "Killer Joe," "The Darkest Hour," "Savages" — to realize that he moves very much to the beat of his own drum. So a movie based on a book by "High Fidelity" and "About A Boy" writer Nick Hornby? Why the hell not?
THR reveals that Hirsch has joined "A Long Way Down," a project that is quickly pulling together its cast, having landed Toni Collette and Pierce Brosnan earlier this month. The story centers on a quartet of people who meet by chance on New Year's Day in the same location, where they had each planned to commit suicide, with Collette to play a mother of a disabled son, while Brosnan will portray a talkshow host whose life has been ruined by a scandalous affair. We presume Hirsch will be playing J.J., a pizza delivery man and former rocker who gave up his dreams of being a rock star to be with a girl only for the band to break up and his girlfriend to dump him.
Sounds like some potentially strong fare, and movies from Hornby's films generally tend to be a cut above the competition. Pascal Chaumeil (of the arthouse rom-com hit "Heartbreaker") will be directing, with production slated to kick off this fall.
