Respected thespian Peter Sarsgaard (you can currently see him sleazing his way through The Green Lantern) has signed on to (maybe) star in and direct in an adaptation of Christopher McDougall's autobiographical book ‘Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen'.
As someone who's about to run an Ultramarathon, I found the book an extremely interesting if slightly preachy read. It features Men's Health writer McDougall travelling to a isolated part of Mexico in search of a tribe of runners called the Tarahumara Indians, who run staggeringly fast Ultramarathons in just sandals and skirts. McDougall's point is that modern running shoes are useless and that we were basically born to run... the book cumulates with a 50 mile race between champion Ultrarunner Scott Jurek (who has a deal with shoe maker Brooks) and local Tarahumara runners. Sarsgaard told Bleeding Cool, "We’re going to try to make, you know, a kind of wild dirt magazine sort of version of 'Born to Run' that honors the true free spirit of what a lot of these people are like," Sarsgaard says. "I was drawn to it because I wanted to play (race organiser) Caballo Blanco and then I got drawn into directing it and now I don’t feel comfortable [doing both]."
Sarsgaard's brother in law Jake Gyllenhaal is attached in some capacity and is apparently a keen barefoot runner.
