Even in his feature debut, Zombieland, director Reuben Fleischer was able to draw an amazing cast, with Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin all established names by the time they took part in the undead comedy. This continued in Fleischer's next film, 30 Minutes or Less (due out August 12), where he brought together Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, and Michael Pena, as well as Eisenberg again. For this third movie, though, he has managed to assemble one of the greatest casts I've ever seen, and it someone just found another addition.
Deadline reports that Giovanni Ribisi has landed a part in Fleischer's The Gangster Squad. In the film Ribisi will play a cop named Conway Keeler, who is a "master of electronics and wires" (unless he's a puppeteer, how one becomes a master of wires is beyond me). The actor joins an already impressive cast that includes Sean Penn (as gangster Mickey Cohen), Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Bryan Cranston, Michael Pena and Anthony Mackie. Will Beall, a former officer himself, wrote the script, which tells the true story of a special squad of the LAPD in the 1940s that worked to fight off the influence of the east coast mafia. Ribisi is currently in production on Seth MacFarlane's Ted and will next be seen alongside Johnny Depp in the adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary.
I've always felt that Ribisi is one of the more under-appreciated character actors out there, but the man has always kept busy. Only 36 and acting in films for the last 16 years, he has 42 movie credits to his name, which averages out to more than two-and-a-half films per year. The man is always great to see on screen and mixed in with the aforementioned group of amazing actors, it's hard to imagine he'll be at any level below his best for Gangster Squad.
