Kevin Smith finds his hockey goon for Hit Somebody

It’s no secret that Kevin Smith has been hunting for a lead for his hockey comedy HIT SOMEBODY for quite some time now, and was pretty bummed out when Seann William Scott jumped ship for Jay Baruchel’s similarly themed movie GOON, but now at least he’s found his man. And it’s uh, that guy.

He’s Nicholas Braun, and a few of you might recognize him from SKY HIGH and the Ten Things I Hate About You series on ABC Family. Here’s what Smith had to say about the whole casting process.

At one point it was Seann William Scott, and Seann William 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, which was totally OK by me. But then I found so much of my Hit Somebody cast while making Red State, so…

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.

Braun is supposed to be playing Buddy McCracken, “a hockey player who discovers a gift for violence.” But as Seann William Scott was relatively jacked, Braun does not appear to have the same muscle mass, and I wonder if he’s going to bulk up, or if it’s just going to be more of an attitude thing. I guess anyone can look big under all those pads.