The Edward Snowden story just keeps attracting actors eager for some meaty, true-life material. The Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley-starring drama has been slowly wrangling its cast, including recent additions Tom Wilkinson, Melissa Leo, and Zachary “Slap-happy” Quinto. Now, Deadline reports that Timothy Olyphant is in final negotiations to join the film—and in a refreshing change for the actor’s recent output, he won’t be shooting anyone or even thinking about donning a cowboy hat.
Olyphant will play a CIA agent who befriended Snowden prior to the latter’s escape to Russia after his leak of classified documents. The Oliver Stone-directed film is currently being prepped in Munich, and is scheduled to begin production soon. The timing seems fortuitous for Olyphant, who told reporters last month that he was going to be unemployed soon, and would have to start saying yes to all the “shitty-ass jobs” he turned down during the half-decade he starred on Justified. No word yet on whether this project is one of those shitty-ass jobs: The argument against it being shitty would be the material, the cast, and the prestige nature of the project. The argument in favor is presumably Oliver Stone.