It’s been a good few years for Simon Pegg’s half of the Pegg-Frost Cornetto comedy dream team, and it’s only getting better for him. He’s got two blockbuster franchises under his belt, but his next movie sounds less Star Trek and more Almost Famous-meets-The Voices.

Deadline reports that Pegg is starring in Katharine O’Brien’s Lost Transmissions, which she wrote and will direct. According to Deadline:

The story follows Hannah, a shy songwriter who discovers that her friend, respected record producer Theo Ross, has lapsed on his medication for schizophrenia. Hannah rallies a group of friends to help commit Theo to a psychiatric facility, chasing him as he outruns his colorful delusions through the glamour and grit of Los Angeles. From the highs of rock ‘n’ roll to rock bottom, it’s a story of the unsung heroes behind the hits.

A comedy-drama about schizophrenia could be somewhat disastrous in the wrong hands, but could also be very nuanced and emotional in the right ones. Pegg himself is a comedian at heart, but even his funny movies have scenes of utter devastation, like a few moments towards the end of The World’s End, in which he plays a mid-forties man who gets his high school friends back together for a bar crawl in the middle of an alien invasion. The blue-goop robots are, thematically, only the background for Pegg’s character coming to terms with his refusal and inability to grow up. O’Brien seems aware of his ability to mesh comedy and tragedy together:

In dealing with mental health, Lost Transmissions combines both comedic and tragic elements. Simon has such a uniquely attuned sense of how to play a range of comedy in moments that still feel real. I’m excited to embrace his very fine skills as a dramatic actor with this film.

Pegg is an actor to keep on your radar, and this sounds like a film right up his alley. We’ll be sure to hear more about casting news for this project in the coming weeks.

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