Pedro Pascal wields a bow, not a blaster, in the trailer for his upcoming film Behemoth!

In the film, written and directed by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Andor), Pascal plays a musician whose life off the stage becomes extremely complicated. The official (but vague) description offered by Searchlight reads, “a gifted cellist, Alex Serian (Pedro Pascal), returns home to Los Angeles after 20 years on the road. Music, which has been the constant, all-consuming river of his life, begins to carry Alex on an adventure that will change him forever.”

The trailer shows Alex practicing with the rest of his orchestra, which includes fellow cellist Olivia Wilde, flirting and making out with violinist played by Eva Victor, and having a tense reunion with his brother, played by Will Arnett.

Beyond that, it’s hard to tell what exactly is going on in Behemoth!, or why it has the unusual punctuation, but its December release date indicates that it may be the kind of Oscar-bait film that typically comes out at the end of the year. The stacked cast also includes Matthew Lillard, Margarita Levieva, Hank Azaria and JoBeth Williams.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Pascal said that he underwent extensive training to learn how to convincingly act like a cellist. “Holding a bow correctly alone takes a day’s lesson, and that’s moving fast,” he said, adding that this training was more difficult than learning to handle a sword or do stunts on projects like Game of Thrones, Gladiator II or The Mandalorian.

“Literally the hardest, hardest, hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn to do. Being in a gladiator arena or hanging from a harness—that stuff pales in comparison to learning how to play the cello and making it look convincing as you’re doing Tchaikovsky,” he told VF.

Behemoth! enters the Oscars race on December 4th when it officially lands in theaters.