Casting Couch: Keira, Eva Take the Night, The Rock Visits Tomorrowland, Audrina Goes Greek

Knightley and Mendes top the major castings, joining the modern-day romantic drama Last Night

By Gina Serpe Sep 18, 2008 3:46 PMTags
Keira Knightley, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Audrina Patridgeon Furniss / Getty Images, Jerome Ware/ZUMA Press, Jordan Strauss / Getty Images

Pretty soon, Keira Knightley is going to know all about Last Night.

The Oscar nominee and perpetual-period-piece thesp is stepping out of a corset and into some modern-day garb, joining Eva Mendes, Sam Worthington and French actress Guillaume Canet in the new relationship drama.

According to Variety, Last Night centers on a young married couple who each face temptations to stray in the form of a business trip with an attractive colleague and a chance encounter with a past love.

It's unclear how the roles will be divvied up.

Newcomer Massy Tadjedin wrote and will make her directorial debut on the flick, which begins shooting in New York next month.

In other big casting news:

  • Tomorrowland never dies for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Hoping to repeat the unlikely success of Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney has begun plans to turn its futuristic theme park section into an epic, space opera with Johnson leading the way, per Variety. The Magic Kingdom denies that the film will be called Tomorrowland, but Mickey's minions have hired two writers to begin work on the park-inspired project.
  • Just call her the Fresh Princess of North Carolina. Jada Pinkett Smith is becoming the latest big-screen actress to take on a prestige cable project, returning to the small screen to star in and executive produce the TNT drama pilot Time Heals. The show will star Pinkett Smith as a strong but caring director of nursing at Charlotte Mercy Hospital.
  • It's all Greek to her. The Hills star Audrina Patridge has pledged Sorority Row, joining the remake of the 1983 horror flick The House on Sorority Row as an ill-fated coed along with Samurai Girl Jamie Chung. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Carrie Fisher is also in talks to join the popcorn flick as the mother of the sorority sisters, who try to cover up two members' deaths when a prank goes wrong only to become victims themselves of a serial killer. Rumer Willis is also on board.
  • Have you met Mr. Jones? The cast of How I Met Your Mother soon will, as Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones will bring his ironically detached self over to the set to guest star on an episode of the CBS sitcom. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Jones will play the ex of Sarah Chalke's returning character Stella Zinman, and the father of her son.
  • 90210's resident jock Dustin Milligan is stretching his acting muscles to play a wannabe stud in Mike Judge's new all-star comedy Extract, per the Hollywood Reporter. The film centers on the owner of a flower-extract plant who tests his theory that his wife is cheating on him. Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck and Mila Kunis also star.