The Emmy-winning star of ABC's hit comedy "Modern Family" has been marking his territory in the indie film world in a pretty serious way lately. In 2012, we'll be seeing the actor two films — the coming-of-age tale "Goats," which recently premiered at Sundance, and the quasi-political comedy "Butter" with Jennifer Garner and Olivia Wilde — and now he's lined up a project that has been the subject of a lot chatter over the past week.
Burrell will join John Hawkes and Mos Def (oops, sorry, Yasiin Bey) in "Switch," a prequel to "Jackie Brown." Set 15 years before the events we see unfold in Quentin Tarantino's film, Ordell Robbie (Sam Jackson's character in the original film, played here by Mos) and Louis Gara (Robert De Niro's part, played by Hawkes) plan to kidnap Mickey Dawson, the wife of a corrupt real estate developer. Their plans are changed, however, when the husband refuses to pay the ransom, so the boys rethink their approach and the wife uses them to help exact some revenge. Sounds pretty rad. Burrell will play Marshall Taylor, a married country club member who has a thing for Mickey, but is left in a moral bind when he witnesses her being snatched away.
Dan Schechter is writing and directing, winning the gig after riskily writing the project on spec without the permission of Elmore Leonard, who wound up giving the project his blessing and coming on board to produce. The cameras start rolling in May. [Variety]