I was back in Boston for Father’s Day this weekend, so I took the opportunity to watch the first episode of the new Showtime series City on a Hill with my family. We all came away impressed — a few shaky accents be damned — and at the end of the episode, my brother asked me where he’d seen the co-lead before. I told him, “probably Straight Outta Compton. He wasn’t Cube or Dre or Eazy-E, he was the other guy, MC Ren.” My brother was about to shrug, and then I added, “his name is Aldis Hodge, and I bet you’re going to be seeing a lot more of him.” He knows I don’t make such predictions lightly.

Cut to three days later, and here I am, writing up the news that Hodge has just signed on to join Elisabeth Moss in Universal and Blumhouse’s update of The Invisible Man. And yes, I’ve confirmed with sources that he is not playing the titular invisible man, so you will, in fact, be seeing plenty of him. In fact, based on what I’m hearing about the death row drama Clemency, I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to sneak into the Oscar race this year. After all, indie distributor Neon helped I, Tonya secure a pair of acting nominations for Margot Robbie and Allison Janney, the latter of whom actually won. The point is that after nearly 25 years in this business, Hodge is finally on the verge of becoming a household name.

As for The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell (Upgrade) is writing and directing the film, which has still not cast its title character. Hodge will instead play the male lead, a cop and single father who cares deeply about Moss’ character, but is dubious when she starts talking about invisibility technology. See, the Invisible Man will be a tech titan in this film, which makes sense, since Whannell’s Upgrade also involved the evils of technology.

Storm Reid (A Wrinkle in Time) will play Hodge’s daughter in the film, which is being produced by Blumhouse principal Jason Blum, as well as Kylie du Fresne of Goalpost Pictures. Whannell will executive produce The Invisible Man, which Universal will release on March 13, 2020. Production is slated to start next month in Sydney, Australia, as the film is a co-production between Blumhouse and Goalpost Pictures Australia, in association with Nervous Tick.

In addition to City on a Hill (which I highly recommend) and the awards hopeful Clemency, Hodge will soon be seen in the upcoming drama Brian Banks, in which he plays the NFL player during his younger years, when he was wrongfully imprisoned for rape. Those three projects and the WGN series Underground are all pretty heavy, so I imagine Hodge must be looking forward to having some fun with a cool genre movie. He recently co-starred opposite Taraji P. Henson in What Men Want after working with the actress on Hidden Figures.

And here’s a fun little bit of trivia for you — Hodge actually plays two different characters in the Die Hard franchise. He played Samuel L. Jackson‘s younger nephew in Die Hard with a Vengeance, while 18 years later, he played a character named Foxy in A Good Day to Die Hard. Yippee-ki-yay! Hodge is represented by Paradigm and the Priluck Company, and Deadline broke the news of his casting in The Invisible Man.

via Collider