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When Jonah Hill first broke onto the scene, he was instantly a name to watch in the comedy scene. Starring in both cult classics and big studio successes like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Grandma's Boy, and Superbad, Jonah Hill a rising star, but most people saw him as the funny, fat, sidekick most of the time. After his co-lead in Superbad, he decided to make a change, and starring in Moneyball alongside Brad Pitt would be a launching pad to the next level of Hollywood Success.
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People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws
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Age, appearance, personality. Bill James in mathematics cut straight through that. That's Jonah Hill in his Academy Award-nominated role as Peter Brand in 2011's Moneyball
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And he's right in the middle of explaining to Brad Pitt's Billy Bean how he can help the athletics find the value of players that nobody else can see
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It's pretty ironic because Hill's performance in the part would also help Hollywood
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and the whole world find overlooked value in a player that no one else seemed to be able to see
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namely Jonah Hill. Does Pete really need to be here? Yes, he does
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After developing a small following as a playwright in college, Jonah Hill decided he wanted to be an actor
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Performing at open mic nights, he became friends with Dustin Hoffman's children, Jake and Becky, who eventually introduced the funny man to Hoffman himself
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Hill made a CD of prank calls to amuse Hoffman, who then asked Hill to prank some of his friends
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According to Hill, I had this bit where I'd phone people, pretend to be a celebrity's assistant, and ask for outlandish things
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Hoffman would then later invite Hill to audition for a small role in David O. Russell's 2004 black
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comedy, I Heart Huckabees, and it would be in that movie that Hill would make his big screen debut
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and things would take off pretty quickly for him from there. His next part would be a brief role
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in Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where he would share the screen with Steve Carell
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I'm just trying to get these shoes back to my house so I can wear them. He would then follow
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that up with a slew of appearances over the next few years in studio comedies like Grandma's Boy
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Click, Accepted, and Knocked Up. Ask me about my wiener! In most of the movies he made during
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this period, Hill filled the role of the stereotypical funny fat sidekick, a staple
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of raunchy comedies at least since John Belushi's wild turn as Bluto Blutoski in 1978's Animal House
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Guys like John Candy, Dom DeLuise, and Chris Farley became comic superstars playing similar
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parts. Hill certainly put his own foul-mouthed, neurotic spin on the trope, but he was nonetheless
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usually confined to those sorts of roles. If I go in there and see f***ing f***ing sprinkled on the toilet seat, I'm gonna f***ing lose
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my mind. Then in 2007 Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg cast him as Seth alongside Michael Cera Evan in their teen coming comedy Superbad It was still a funny fat sidekick role in a raunchy comedy but it was a co and the movie gave Hill some legitimate emotional beats to play
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Audiences and critics took note. The movie was a massive hit. Hill was widely praised for his acting, and the role would become his breakout performance
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You don't want girls thinking that you suck your f***ing f***ing, okay? Over the next few years, he would continue to make appearances in comedies like Forgetting
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Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, and would lend his voice to animated comedies like
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How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind. But as the actor would later explain
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behind the scenes, he was growing bored of repeatedly playing the same type of comedic
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sidekick roles. In his own words, doing the same thing over and over again is as boring to do
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as it's boring to watch. Looking to expand his dramatic horizons, Hill would turn down one of
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the lead roles in 2009's mega hit The Hangover, and declined to play Shia LaBeouf's sidekick in
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2009's Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Passing on parts in what would be two of the year's
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highest grossing films was risky. But Hill would later say, they were both really big decisions, and ones that most people didn't understand
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I knew I could be a dramatic actor, but I also knew I couldn't go from super bad to Schindler's
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list. Then, in December of 2009, Bennett Miller was hired to replace director Steven Soderbergh
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on an adaptation of Michael Lewis's best-selling biography of Oakland A's general manager Billy
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Bean. Soderbergh's departure caused actor and comedian Dimitri Martin, who had been cast in
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the role that would eventually be renamed Peter Brand, to also drop out of the film. Miller offered
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the part to Hill, who leapt at the chance to play serious dramatic scenes against Pitt
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Pack your bags, Pete. I just bought you from the Cleveland Indians. Despite his dramatic aspirations, the casting of Hill was initially perceived as a stunt to get
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young audiences into the film, and in all fairness, that skepticism wasn't totally out of left field
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Hill himself has discussed how difficult it was to get a movie like Moneyball through the studio
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system, and his casting would provide certain advantages with a certain demographic
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The studio forced him on us It was stunt casting and we made it work though I think They did their best with what they had and I just was grateful to be there you know Further fueling doubts was the simple fact that making a leap from comedic to dramatic acting
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is a career move many performers had tried before, and it didn't always work out so hot
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On one hand, Tom Hanks was able to effortlessly transition from raunchy comedies like Bachelor
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Party to dramas like Saving Private Ryan and Apollo 13. And despite initially being famous for his absurd characters on the comedy variety show
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in Living Color and in movies like Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Jim Carrey was embraced by audiences
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for his serious tone performances in films like The Truman Show and Man on the Moon. That being
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said, examples to the contrary are far more common. Vince Vaughn's attempt at a dramatic turn in 1998's
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Psycho remake resulted in a stilted performance and a dud at the box office. Similarly unembraced
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by the public where Chevy Chase's 1992 turn in Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Mike Myers' awkward
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Goh in 1998's 54, Nick Kroll's forgettable performance in 2022's Don't Worry Darling
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and so much more. Moneyball, however, was a huge success, and Hill's work earned both critical
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acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The experience only made him
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more determined to build out his dramatic resume. Reflecting on his comedic acting career years
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later, Hill would explain, It's just not as inspiring to me anymore as an artist. I love
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doing it, but it really is exciting after Moneyball to have that taste for something different. Beyond
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beyond being more creatively fulfilling, the dramatic success would completely change the trajectory of Hill's career
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The following year, he would make a brief appearance in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained
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a role that was originally planned to be larger, but had to be cut down due to conflicts with Hill's schedule
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And in 2013, Hill would play Donny Azoff alongside Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort
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in Martin Scorsese's 2013 drama, The Wolf of Wall Street. Steve Madden. Steve
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But while DiCaprio took home $10 million for his work on the film, Hill was paid just $60,000
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Despite the discrepancy, Hill told his agents, fax him the papers tonight. I want to sign them tonight before they change their mind
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The actor would later explain, I would sell my house and give him all my money to work for Scorsese
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This isn what you make money for You do 22 Jump Street or you do other things and you can pay your rent I would have done anything in the world I would do it again in a second His performance would earn him his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor As he moved further away from the stereotypical
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roles he used to be trapped in, Hill underscored his transformation by losing the weight that led
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to such castings in the first place. In 2018, he would recall, I became famous in my late teens and
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then spent most of my young adult life listening to people say that I was fat and gross and
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unattractive. With his public image and his position in the industry vastly changed, Hill
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stepped behind the camera in 2018, making his directorial debut on the coming-of-age comedy
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drama Mid90s. The film was met with generally positive reviews, and Hill would tell NPR
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my whole dream, my whole life, was to be a writer-director. I fell into this 15-year acting
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career where I got to learn from a lot of my heroes, and it's something I have wanted to do
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and would have done sooner. It's just that you only get one chance to make your first film
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In the years since Moneyball, Hill has regularly worked with other auteur filmmakers
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including Gus Van Sant, the Coen Brothers, and Harmony Corrine. And he's currently slated to star as Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia
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in a biopic to be directed by Scorsese. But as rare as it is for comedic actors to so successfully make the transition
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what Hill has found for himself is rarer still. Because unlike someone like Tom Hanks, who greatly reduced his comedic output
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after making his mark in dramas, Hill never stopped making comedies. In 2012, he teamed up with Channing Tatum for the surprise hit comedy 21 Jump Street
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which Hill himself co-wrote and executive produced. In the subsequent years, he would continue to appear regularly in comedic parts
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only, unlike in the period of his career before Moneyball, Hill can now do comedy without always being typecast in the same kind of role
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Alongside his hard-earned dramatic credibility, it makes him a very unique kind of actor with a very rare sort of flexibility
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And it all happened because Hill saw himself as an artist capable of meaningful work
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and not just a paycheck player that made it all happen. Today, Jonah Hill can bounce back and forth
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between different types of films and different types of roles. Simultaneously, a beloved funny man
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and a respected serious actor. Hollywood is finally playing cinematic money ball
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and getting maximum value out of Jonah Hill. And we think Billy Bean would probably love that
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How can you not be romantic about baseball
#Film & TV Industry
#Comedy Films
#Drama Films