Academy award nominated actor John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone) has officially signed on for a role in a highly-anticipated prequel to Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic 1997 film Jackie Brown. Hawkes will be taking over the role of Louis Gara (originally played by Robert DeNiro) and will co-star alongside rapper Mos Def, who is taking over Samuel L. Jackson’s part. Variety reports:

Fresh off his critically acclaimed turn in Sundance’s audience award winner “The Surrogate,” John Hawkes has committed to star opposite Yasiin Bey in the Elmore Leonard adaptation “Switch,” from writer-director Dan Schechter (“Supporting Characters”).

The crime drama will serve as a prequel to Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown,” with Hawkes and Bey playing younger versions of Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson’s respective characters Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie, who appear in Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch.”

Set 15 years before the events in “Jackie Brown,” story follows career criminals Ordell and Louis as they team up to kidnap Mickey Dawson, the wife of a corrupt Detroit real estate developer. When the husband refuses to pay the ransom for his wife’s return, the ex-cons are forced to reconceive their plan, and the angry housewife uses the duo to get her revenge.