Josh Gad, the rising star of such titles as the hit Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, Love & Other Drugs, TV sitcom 1600 Penn, and the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic Jobs, where he plays Steve Wozniak, has been set to play Sam Kinison in an upcoming biopic directed by Seinfeld writer/producer Larry Charles.

The larger-than-life Kinison was a huge stand-up comic presence in the ’80s, known for screaming many of his jokes in way that would make Lewis Black seem shy and soft spoken. Kinison jumped from a life of religious preaching into comedy and quickly rose to fame before drugs and alcohol consumed him and brought everything to an abrupt halt. He would eventually overcome these issues and get clean, but before he could ever really return to the spotlight, he was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver.

Continue below for more, and to see Kinison performing on Rodney Dangerfield’s classic Young Comedians Special, which would propel him into stardom.