Miles Teller Is Going to Voice a Cartoon Aardvark in a Movie Based on Noah’s Ark

With the days of professional voice actors now mostly regulated to television, Hollywood scours its talent for recognizable names to pair with its animated features. Today’s most inexplicable career move comes from Miles Teller, who has signed on to voice the titular creature in John Stevenson’s The Ark and the Aardvark. The film is an animated riff on the Noah’s Ark tale, focusing on the aardvark’s perspective of what it’s like to survive a giant flood packed in a ship two-by-two.

The Hollywood Reporter calls Teller’s character Gilbert a kind, funny soul who “leads a group of misfit animals though natural disasters and personal anxieties.” Stevenson was in the art department for Madagascar and the first two Shrek movies, breaking out in 2008 to direct the surprisingly funny and heartwarming Kung Fu Panda.

According to Stevenson, “Gilbert is young, spirited, sarcastic, and we couldn’t have found a more perfect artist to bring Gilbert to life in Miles.” Teller is a huge talent who was entertaining as Peter in the Divergent movies and had his big dramatic break with 2014’s fantastic Whiplash, so maybe it’s time for him to flex his voice acting muscles. It’s no weirder than, for example, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon voicing two existentialist krill in the Happy Feet sequel. Which happened.

The Ark and the Aardvark doesn’t currently have a release date. You can see Teller back in the multiplex soon when his boxing drama Bleed for This opens November 23.