How can I put this: If John Hawkes is in a movie, I'm paying to see it. Period. The respected character actor made a dramatic turn with his fearsome performance as Teardrop in Winter's Bone, and has been energizing films like Martha Marcy May Marlene and Higher Ground ever since. He's managed to do all this while sticking mostly to the indie scene(except for his recurring bit on Eastbound & Down), and now he'll do it again as part of the indie thriller, Too Late.
Hawkes will lead the ensemble cast which includes the great Peter Bogdanovich(The Last Picture Show), Natalie Zea, Rider Strong(Cabin Fever), Dichen Lachman. Dennis Hauck will make his feature writing/directing debut with the non-linear story of a private investigator(Hawkes) and the tangled relationship he has with the woman he's been hired to track down.
This one's kicking off pretty fast, beginning later this month. From there, Hawkes will jump straight into Switch, the prequel to Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, which was then adapted by Quentin Tarantino into Jackie Brown. I think the next big film for Hawkes will be The Surrogate, a festival darling in which he plays a paralyzed poet in an iron lung with aspirations of having his first sexual experience. Fox Searchlight bought the rights for the surprising crowd pleaser after Sundance, and we should see it later this year. You can find my review of it here. [THR]
