J.K. Simmons, who was already Hollywood’s go-to character actor of a certain vintage before he won last year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is continuing his reign of cinematic ubiquity with an appearance in the upcoming comedy Bastards. Simmons will play a potential father to Owen Wilson and Ed Helms, who go in search of their biological pater familias after their sexually prolific mother reveals that he’s still alive. Simmons has been cast alongside former NFL player and commentator Terry Bradshaw, playing himself as another candidate for the brothers’ disappeared dad.
Besides Bastards, Simmons has recently been cast in a lot of roles tending toward “relentlessly antagonistic yelling/demanding pictures of Spider-Man” types, including a disapproving father in The Runaround, and a disapproving Navy SEALs leader in The Lake. (If Whiplash proved anything, it’s that there’s a lot of mileage to be found in J.K. Simmons disapproving of things.) It remains to be seen whether Bastards will see him treat Wilson and Helms with similar levels of vitriol, or whether it’ll tap into the more whimsical, weary, “I don’t fucking know either,” side of his public persona.
