Alexander Payne is currently working on another film with ‘Holdovers’ screenwriter David Hemingson, —a Western, in fact—and during a Q&A on Friday, Hemingson revealed there’s a part set for Paul Giamatti.
Hemingson went on to reveal some details about the new project, saying that he is co-writing the screenplay with Payne and that the film is set in Nebraska in 1886. No production start date was revealed, but I’m thinking we might get this one in 2025:
It’s like no Western you have ever seen before, because it’s an Alexander Payne Western. So, all those interpersonal dynamics, all the stuff that he does, so brilliantly. He’s such a brilliant humanist. He’s going to suffuse this thing. It’ll be recognizable as within the genre, and it’ll have certain other tropes. But we intend to turn them on their head and really talk about the humanist perspective of 1886 Nebraska, which I’m thrilled about.
This would be Giamatti’s third collaboration with Payne after 2004’s “Sideways” and last year’s “The Holdovers,” which might, just might, win him the Oscar for Best Actor. It’s a two-way race right now between Giamatti and Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer"). Tonight’s SAG awards, a key precursor, will give us a better indicator as to what to expect come March 10.
In the meantime, Payne, the director of “Election,” “Sideways” and “Nebraska,” has “The Holdovers” also nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The film has been heralded as a return to form for Payne after directing 2017’s disappointing “Downsizing.”