People love J.K. Simmons, as they should, because he’s one of the most talented and versatile character actors in the business. Whether you need a curmudgeonly father figure, a wizened old sage, a grizzled badass or a terrifying force of nature; he’s your guy.
The Academy Award winner is also incredibly prolific, having found the time to show up in ten movies and ten TV shows since the beginning of last year alone, two of which are widely expected to see him reprise his role as J. Jonah Jameson in both Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, setting him up as the bridge between two shared superhero universes.
Anyone that’s seen Oz or Whiplash knows that Simmons can be utterly and pant-wettingly frightening when he needs to be, which makes the news that he’s joined thriller The Woods as a murderous sociopath equal parts exciting and concerning. As per Deadline, Michelle Schumacher will direct from a script she co-wrote with Carolyn Carpenter, and the plot follows a teenage girl who suffers from crippling anxiety caused by an event from her past.
If that wasn’t troublesome enough, she finds herself being hunted through the woods by a serial killer, which is where Simmons comes into play. Sometimes all you need from a film to deliver quality entertainment is a simple, uncomplicated setup, and The Woods will certainly provide that.
