Christopher Nolan has added yet another top-notch, award-winning star to the cast of his upcoming sci-fi thriller Interstellar. New reports have revealed that John Lithgow, most recently seen in Judd Apatow's family dramedy This is 40, has signed on for a role in the new Nolan movie. The Wrap first reported the news, but neither Paramount nor Nolan responded for comment before the story's publication.
Details about the story are slim at this point, but it's been said that the movie will follow a team of explorers who travel through a wormhole to another dimension. Jonathan Nolan, Christopher's brother, wrote the original screenplay, which Christopher rewrote and merged with pre-existing idea he had when he came aboard to direct. The film is partially inspired by the works of Caltech physicist Kip Thorne, who The Wrap says is both an executive producer and a technical consultant.
There are no character details about the role that Lithgow will be playing, but he joins a cast that is stacked with talent. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck, Ellen Burstyn and Nolan regular Michael Caine are all set to star in the film, with Homeland's Timothee Chalamet and Twilight's Mackenzie Foy recently coming on-board as well. The movie is currently in pre-production, but Paramount has already announced that they will be releasing it on November 7, 2014, meaning that production will likely start before the end of the year. At CinemaCon earlier this year it was officially announced that Nolan would once against be making use of IMAX cameras in the filming of Interstellar, similar to what he did with both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. We don't know how much of the movie will be filmed in the expanded format, but it's said to be a "significant portion."
Lithgow doesn't take on that many film projects nowadays, but he has kept busy with significant roles in movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Campaign. He recently completed production on The Homesman, the new western from writer/director Tommy Lee Jones about a claim jumper and a pioneer woman who transport three clinically insane women from Nebraska to Iowa. Jones, Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, Tim Blake Nelson, Miranda Otto, Hailee Steinfeld, James Spader and William Fichtner co-star in the film, which is predicted to come out later this year. He also has a role in the upcoming One Upon A Time spinoff Once Upon A Time In Wonderland, which will be on television starting next year. In the show he will be playing the role of The White Rabbit.
No matter how many new projects Lithgow takes on, I'm still not sure I will ever be able to get over his absolutely brilliant, Emmy winning performance on the fourth season of Dexter. If you don't understand why, just watch the clip below and it won't take you long to figure it out.
