Could Jason Segel Win An Oscar For This Role?

We've seen the photos of Jason Segel dressed like David Foster Wallace, but now you can see him in the role that could change his career with the End of the Tour trailer. Here Segel is joined by Batman v Superman's Jesse Eisenberg, playing a journalist writing a story on Wallace, his wide success as a writer, and his ongoing book tour. Though the film won't hit theaters until July 31, early buzz from the film festival circuit peg this as one to watch come awards season.

Wallace was one of the most celebrated writers of the modern age and arguably the most talented of his generation. He wrote a slew of best-selling works, including Consider the Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. But his most famous and complex work is Infinite Jest, a lengthy comedy centering on an addicts halfway house and a tennis academy. While on a book tour for Infinite Jest, Wallace was interviewed by Rolling Stone journalist and novelist David Lipsky over the course of five days.

The interview was never published in the magazine, Lipsky's audio recordings were stored in his home — though he did revisit it in his book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace — and the two would never meet again. (Wallace, then 46, killed himself on September 12, 2008.) The End of the Tour is about this intimate moment from the lives of these men.

Watch the trailer below.

The End of the Tour screened at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and, even though it's still pretty early to be deciding Oscar frontrunners, the film garnered positive buzz — especially for Segel's performance. The actor is known primarily for comedic and sitcom-y roles, such as How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Sex Tape. And, while he has flexed his dramatic chops with Jeff Who Lives At Home, it was nothing quite like what's shown in The End of the Tour.

Though the quality of the film as a whole was more debatable among critics, nearly all who saw it had great things to say about Segel. To mention a few, IndieWire's Anne Thompson called his performance "awards worthy," The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney said that it's Segel's best since Freaks and Geeks, and Justin Gerber from Consequence of Sound thinks that people will be talking about Segel's Wallace for years afterwards.

We're still a ways before Oscar season is in tow, but Segel's immense push ahead in strengthening his position as a dramatic actor has our attention. Other early standouts for potential awards recognitions are Eddie Redmayne, following up his Oscar-winning role in The Theory of Everything with trans pioneer film The Danish Girl; Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant from Oscar-winning Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu; and Jake Gyllenhaal as an unrecognizably chiseled boxer in Southpaw. These names are based on rave reviews and buzz coming out of early screenings and film festivals. We'll get a better sense of where the race stands once these titles hit theaters and more potential contenders emerge.

Images: A24 Films