Bryan Cranston has been cast as famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in "Trumbo," a new film from "Game Change" director Jay Roach. According to Deadline.com, "Trumbo" will begin production in 2014.
Trumbo, a screenwriter and author of "Johnny Got His Gun" among other works, was part of the Hollywood 10, a group of screenwriters and directors who were blacklisted after refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. He would go on to write films using fronts and assumed names throughout the 1950s, including "Roman Holiday," for which he won one of his two Oscars. (Ian McLellan Hunter, an English screenwriter, was credited on "Roman Holiday" and took home the trophy, but the script was Trumbo's work; Trumbo's widow was presented with a proper Academy Award in 1993.)
For Cranston, "Trumbo" marks a leap to leading man status that has thus far eluded him onscreen. His film roles have skewed toward the supporting end of the spectrum, in features like "Drive," "Argo," "Rock of Ages" and "Total Recall." (He also has a supporting role in next summer's "Godzilla.") In a recent New Yorker profile of the three-time Emmy winner, Cranston revealed he picks roles by focusing on the story, script and character. "An actor can only raise the level of bad writing by a grade," Cranston said of his complicated points system (detailed here by NextMovie). "C writing, and I don't care if you're Meryl Streep -- you can only raise it to a B."
"Trumbo," it seems, met Cranston's standards. More on the project can be found at Deadline.com.
[via Deadline.com]
