Why Angelina Needs to Pick an Unknown for 'Unbroken'

If you haven't read Unbroken, shut down your computer, leave your house, and walk to the nearest book store immediately. (Oh, wait, I forgot it's 2013 — open up a new window, enter Amazon.com into your browser, order Unbroken, and wait two to three days.) Then come back here so we can talk about Laura Hillenbrand's insanely addictive and insanely non-fiction book about Louis Zamperini, the tougher-than-Teflon World War II vet who's still alive and kicking today.

For it seems Angelina Jolie's big-screen adaptation of the book is beginning to make headway, with the director narrowing her shortlist for a young Zamperini down to three actors: Alexander Dreymon, Jack O'Connell, and Dane DeHaan. Chances are, you've never heard of these three actors. And that's a good thing.

And it's a good indication that Hillenbrand has put the book into the right hands. Zamperini — an Olympian who survived a plane crash... and then a shark attack... and then 47 days lost at sea... and then several POW camps — is so larger-than-life, it would be an insult to hand him to a Zac Efron or Rob Pattinson or, yes, even Josh Hutcherson. No, Zamperini is such a tour de force (we are talking about a man that took up skateboarding in his old age, after all ) that taking away attention away from him with a sight for starry-eyed teen eyes just seems wrong.

Looks-wise, O'Connell seems to most fit Zamperini's spirited stare, but it doesn't matter. Seeing Jolie's narrowed list, it's easy to be confident that she'll make the right choice. Only question that remains: Who'll play the shark?