EXCLUSIVE: John Michael Higgins Joins Matt Damon in 'We Bought a Zoo'

John Michael Higgins, one of Hollywood ultimate scene stealers, has joined Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson in We Bought a Zoo, the true life drama Cameron Crowe is directing at Fox.

The movie is based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee, who used his life savings to buy a dilapidated zoo, replete with 200 exotic animals facing destruction, in the English countryside. Mee, along with his children, had to balance caring for his wife, who was dying of brain cancer, with dealing with escaped tigers, raising endangered animals, working with an eclectic skeleton crew and readying the zoo for a reopening.

Higgins, repped by UTA and Magnolia Entertainment, will play a state zoo inspector cursed with an active and loud stomach who’s got it in for Mee, played by Damon.

Higgins is known for swiping the spotlight in movies such as The Break-Up and Yes Man and TV shows such as Community and Arrested Development.

Zoo’s cast also includes Thomas Hayden Church, Patrick Fugit, Angus Macfadyen and Elle Fanning.

Rick Yorn and Julie Yorn are producing the pic, which transfers the action stateside and begins shooting next week in Los Angeles.