Regardless of how scornful you might feel about Zach Braff’s Kickstarter campaign for his upcoming film I Wish I Was Here, there are enough Braff fanatics out there to make the film a reality. And now that all that dust has settled and I Wish I Was Here's Kickstarter goal has been well exceeded, the film’s casting has begun.
Veteran actor Mandy Patinkin has joined the indie production, and he’ll be joined by The Book of Mormon’s Josh Gad. They’ll be joining The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons, who was added to the cast last week. That’s a lot of TV stars coming together for this flick.
Patinkin has been killing it the last couple of years in his role as Saul on Showtime’s Homeland, and will next be seen in the Philip Roth adaptation American Pastoral, which is currently filming. The Tony Award-nominated Gad has had something of a challenging year so far, which has seen the release of the Steve Jobs biopic Jobs -in which Gad played Steve Wozniak - delayed indefinitely, and his NBC sitcom 1600 Penn was recently cancelled. But he’s voicing one of the leads in Disney’s upcoming Frozen as well as a lead in DreamWorks Animation’s Me and My Shadow, so his career isn’t in dire straits or anything.
I Wish I Was Here, written by brothers Zach and Adam Braff, follows Zach’s struggling actor, father and husband character as he tries to figure out his life in his mid-thirties, perhaps finding his answers when his financial situation forces him to homeschool his two kids. Patinkin will play Braff’s character’s father, while Gad will play the brother role. No word on if Parsons will become a sexy pool boy for the film as he did in the campaign video.
The Kickstarter funding still has another nine days to go if you're still in a mood to donate.
