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Kevin Smith Announces Nicholas Braun to Star in 'Hit Somebody'

by Alex Billington
November 29, 2010
Source: Kevin Smith, SlashFilm

More Kevin Smith news tonight! Smith announced in a new episode of his podcast Hollywood Babble-On (via SlashFilm) that the star of his upcoming hockey film Hit Somebody, based on the Warren Zevon song, will be young actor Nicholas Braun. Most of you won't recognize him, but Braun is a 22-year-old, 6'6" tall actor mostly known for Sky High, dating Selena Gomez, and appearing on ABC Family's "10 Things I Hate About You." He is also in Disney's Prom and Kevin Smith's horror flick Red State, which is where/why/how he cast him in this anyway. "I found so much of my Hit Somebody cast while making Red State," Smith says.

Here's the quote from the Hollywood Babble-On podcast where Smith reveals Braun and why he chose him.

"The guy who’s going to play my lead, whose name is Buddy McKraken in the movie, is a fella who's in our flick [Red State] and his name is Nicholas Braun. He's this really great actor who I love to death and he is the perfect lead for this hockey movie, for this script, which is based on this Warren Zevon song."

Hit Somebody, which is Kevin Smith's first foray into a sports flick, is based on the Warren Zevon song and tells the story of a hockey kid (Braun) who wants more than anything to be in the NHL, but is only good at one thing: beating people up on the ice. Smith wanted Seann William Scott to star as Buddy, but he ended up in Goon instead. Smith joked saying, "Scott apparently wanted to make a hockey movie real fuckin' bad... So he went to do another one, which meant we were star-less for a while." Now he's found what sounds like will be a good lead and he'll probably be filling up the cast with other great actors before shooting next July.

I'm sure we will hear plenty more about this as Smith continues pre-production work the project, but in the meantime, we've got his horror flick Red State, which will most likely be hitting Sundance early next year. I don't know anything about Nicholas Braun, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Kevin Smith can do with a hockey film, I think we're in for something very fun. Who else is looking forward to Hit Somebody?

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