Yeah, bitch! Everyone’s favorite meth-making sidekick, Aaron Paul, is now set to star in the latest adaptation of a Nick Hornby novel. Deadline Hollywood reports that Paul will star in the Paschal Chaumeil-directed and Jack Thorne-scripted A Long Way Down, an ensemble dramedy about, of all totally hilarious things, suicide.
The film centers on four very different characters who are linked by one common thread – they all plan to commit suicide in the same way on the same day. The four of them meet when they all find themselves on the top of the same building on New Year’s Eve, each intent on jumping off of it. As they talk and get to know each other, their plans go a bit askew.
Paul will play JJ, an American who is living in London after losing both his band and his girl. Distraught over having chucked his dreams for a girl who chucked him, JJ is stuck in a dead-end job as a pizza delivery boy. He will be joined by Pierce Brosnan (as Martin Sharp, a former television host disgraced by his an affair with a fifteen-year-old girl), Toni Collette as Maureen (the single mother of a disabled son), and Imogen Poots (as Jess, a teenager with a host of family problems). If you’re thinking that this is perfect casting, you are correct.
Emile Hirsch had been previously cast in Paul’s role, but fortunately enough, that has not panned out (yes, I consider this to be a giant trade up).
Paul will next be seen in Sundance hit Smashed, which opens on October 12th. The film charts the rise and fall of a pair of love-struck drunks, with Paul’s character’s wife played by the ever-charming Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a career-making performance. Our own Allison Loring saw the film at Sundance and gave it an ace review (which you can read HERE); in fact, she spoke so highly of the film that I took time to catch it just for fun. It may not be a “fun” film, but it’s a great one, and it highlights the Emmy winner’s sterling taste when it comes to the projects he attaches himself to.
“A Long Way Down” is Hornby’s fourth novel, and was published in 2006. While it is my least favorite of Hornby’s works, it will likely prove quite adaptable to the big screen (after all, Hornby’s novels have spawned no less than four big screen takes, all of which have been stellar). You can take a peek inside the book, over at Amazon.
Shooting on the film will begin in London in September.