This undated publicity photo released by Bleiberg Entertainment shows Cory Monteith in a scene from the film, McCanick, directed by Josh C. Waller. The film makes its world debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in Sept. 2013.Eliza Morse/The Associated Press
Art veers eerily close to life in one of the final film roles of the late Cory Monteith.
In the trailer for the upcoming crime drama McCanick, the handsome Canadian actor looks disheveled and dirty in his portrayal of an ex-convict named Simon who is being tracked down by dogged police detective Mack McCanick (David Morse).
Monteith appears owl-eyed and furtive in the trailer, which establishes that his character was recently released from prison and is wanted on a fresh murder charge. "This isn't some junkie," barks the police chief (Ciaran Hinds) who dispatches McCanick to pick up the ex-con.
Best known for a much more cleancut role as the singing football player Finn on the television series Glee, the Calgary-born Monteith died in a Vancouver hotel room last month from a combination of heroin and alcohol. He was 31.
Monteith says very little in the McCanick trailer, which mostly shows him running away from McCanick over city rooftops and through a big-city subway system.
Earlier this week, McCanick's director, Josh C. Waller, told Entertainment Weekly that the role represented "an opportunity of catharsis" for Monteith, who dealt with substance abuse problems for most of his life.
McCanick is one of two films starring Monteith that will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.
The other film, All the Wrong Reasons, is a comedy-drama in which he plays a department store manager whose life is changed irrevocably by a tragic event.