Stand-up comedians don’t always make an easy transition into acting, but there are certainly quite a few success stories. Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, and many more. Well, let’s not overlook Jim Gaffigan. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s been in a ton of films over the last few years, and not just goofy comedies but strong dramatic stuff such as Light from Light, Them That Follow, and Tesla. Gaffigan is earning some of the best reviews of his acting career for Linoleum, which debuted at SXSW last year and heads into theaters next month.
In Linoleum, Gaffigan stars as a kids’ science TV show host with a dream of becoming an astronaut. When part of a rocket crashes into his backyard, he decides to rebuild it and fulfill that dream, much to the chagrin of his soon-to-be ex-wife and daughter. It isn’t long before other weird, surreal elements begin to intrude into his life, including the arrival of a doppelganger.
Gaffigan is joined in the cast by Rhea Seehorn, Katelyn Nacon, Gabriel Rush, Amy Hargreaves, Roger Hendricks Simon, Elisabeth Henry, West Duchovny, Michael Ian Black, and Tony Shalhoub. Colin West wrote the script as well as directed.
Linoleum opens in theaters on February 24th.
Cameron Edwin (Jim Gaffigan), the host of a failing children’s science TV show called “Above & Beyond”, has always had aspirations of being an astronaut. After a mysterious space-race era satellite coincidentally falls from space and lands in his backyard, his midlife crisis manifests in a plan to rebuild the machine into his dream rocket. As his relationship with his wife (Rhea Seehorn) and daughter (Katelyn Nacon) start to strain, surreal events begin unfolding around him — a doppelgänger moving into the house next door, a car falling from the sky, and an unusual teenage boy forging a friendship with him. He slowly starts to piece these events together to ultimately reveal that there’s more to his life story than he once thought.
