Next year's must-have: A part in SpongeBob SquarePants. Leave it to Victoria Beckham to be way ahead of the curve.
The erstwhile Spice Girl—and, much more importantly in this scenario, the child-pleasing mother of 4-year-old cartoon-loving Cruz—has lent her voice to an upcoming half-hour episode of the absorption-friendly Nickelodeon favorite.
Anyone familiar with Beckham's work in Spice World will be pleased to hear that the fashionista won't be straying too far from her comfort zone, and will be playing Queen Amphitrite, a Brit-accented goddess of the sea.
The Posh One follows in the kid-friendly footsteps of Johnny Depp in recording a role for the hit show. The Oscar nominee voiced surfer dude Jack Kahuna Laguna in a 10th anniversary-celebrating special, SpongeBob vs. the Big One, airing April 17.
Beckham's episode, entitled "Neptune's Party," is scheduled to air in summer 2010.
Meanwhile, in other casting news...
• Al Pacino is getting a serious Napoleon complex in Betsy and the Emperor. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the veteran thesp will tackle the role of the vertically-challenged French emperor in an adaptation of the Staton Rabin children's book.
• Leah Remini is taking a break from getting photographed with BFF Jennifer Lopez to star in a new comedy pilot for ABC. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the former King of Queens actress will star in Don't Try This At Home as a newspaper editor raising three kids with her husband, played by Matthew Lillard.
• Speaking of Lopez, it looks like the mother of two just nabbed herself a new leading man. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Moonlight hunk Alex O'Laughlin will vamp it up opposite Lopez in the romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan. The film centers on a woman who decides to get artificially inseminated, only to meet her dream man after becoming pregnant.
• Following up Bruno might be challenging for some directors, but not Larry Charles, who has already attached himself to a project centering on, as Variety bluntly puts it, "geriatric sex." The helmer will take on Winter's Discontent, a comedy about a sexually-frustrated widower who moves into a retirement community with just one thing on his mind.