No stranger to comedy, actor Steve Carell is taking on a new challenge in the role of mentally-ill millionaire John du Pont who shot and killed Olympic wrestler David Schultz, reports Variety.
The film Foxcatcher directed by Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) tells the story of a man struggling with severe mental illness. The screenplay was written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, who also wrote Capote.
John du Pont was a paranoid schizophrenic and heir to the du Pont chemical fortune. He built a wrestling training facility called Team Foxcatcher on his Pennsylvania estate, where in 1996, he shot and killed Olympic gold medal-winning wrestler David Schultz.
Schultz was a longtime friend of du Pont who had repeatedly tried to help him. Police never established a motive for the crime, which was witnessed by Schultz’s wife and du Pont’s head of security. After the shooting, du Pont locked himself in his mansion for two days while he negotiated with police on the telephone.
Filming is set to begin next March, however no release date has been announced yet.
A versatile actor, Steve Carell, 49, is one of Hollywood’s hardest working stars with a career in film and television. Since 2005, he starred in the popular NBC series The Office. In film, in addition to voicing various characters (Despicable Me, Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!), he also plays the leading man in popular feature films (The 40-Year-old Virgin, Get Smart, Date Night, Crazy, Stupid, Love).