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Jason Segel Tells Us Why You Won't Smell Any 'B.S.' In His Performance As David Foster Wallace

Segel says goodbye Apatow and hello Oscar - maybe.

With reporting by Josh Horowitz

Jason Segel is shedding his Apatowian image in "The End of the Tour" -- and that's a very good thing. The film has already been hailed as a "breakthrough performance" for the 35-year-old actor.

The film, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, has Segel slipping into the complicated shoes of author David Foster Wallace and showcasing his dramatic chops. Directed by James Ponsoldt ("The Spectacular Now"), the biopic follows Wallace and Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) on the last leg of the "Infinite Jest" book tour.

Speaking to MTV News at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Segel opened up about the intimidation he felt playing such an iconic literary figure on the big screen.

"I think it would not be honest to say that it doesn't feel like a different thing," Segel said. "I think that acting in general requires honesty... And this, much more so than a comedy, I think you would have smelled any B.S."

"It's so wordy," he added. "There's a lot of room in this movie to feel someone acting, and I didn't want that to come across at all."

A24 Films picked up the distribution rights to "The End of the Tour" at Sundance. The film will likely get a theatrical release sometime in 2015.

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