After a good number of years chugging along as a “that guy” actor and doing small parts in films and a handful of episodes of a TV show here and there, things finally seem to be working out for Adam Scott. Over the past five years or so he’s really been able to develop a persona, an on-screen character that casting people know how to use, and it’s led to him being knee deep in work.
Not only is he a regular on the outstanding NBC series Parks and Recreation, but he’s also starring opposite names like Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, and Maya Rudolph in Friends With Kids, he’s got a movie with Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Kaplan, and Isla Fisher called Bachelorette that just debuted at Sundance, and in the next year he’s going to be in Dan Fogelman’s movie My Mother’s Curse, he’s co-starring in a romance called See Girl Run, and he’s going to be in a movie called A.D.O.C. with titans of the screen Jane Lynch and Richard Jenkins. The guy looks to be on top of the world. But, the new role that he’s negotiating for may be the biggest thing he’s been involved with yet.
Deadline Santa Cruz is reporting that Scott is in negotiations to join the already-confirmed Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Patton Oswalt, and Shirley Maclaine in Stiller’s upcoming, high-profile adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I know that Stiller can be a bit of a punching bag on the Internet due to a perceived lack of versatility and the fact that a lot of his work seems to be so commercially driven, but it can’t be denied that his movies usually open big and get a lot of eyeballs on them. This could be the biggest opportunity Adam Scott has had yet to go from being “that guy” in the eyes of the public to just being “Adam Scott.” As a fan of his work, I think that would be a lot of fun to see happen.