Casting Couch: Special Guest for Stiller, Roth Hits Small Screen, Gillian Anderson Has Write Stuff

Christopher Guest joins cast of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

As if Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams and Ricky Gervais didn't provide enough kid-friendly comic power the first time around, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is turning the funny all the way up to 11.

The thinking man's funnyman, Christopher Guest, is bringing his comedy chops to the blockbuster sequel, signing on to star as Ivan the Terrible.

The original's stars are all back, as is new addition Bill Hader, who will play Gen. George Custer.

Reno 911 short-short wearer Thomas Lennon, who copenned the first film as well as the sequel, will also take a turn in front of the camera this time around, playing one of the Wright brothers alongside his cowriter and fellow member of Reno's small-screen finest, Robert Ben Garant.

Shooting will take place in Vancouver and at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

In other casting news:

• Hulk nemesis Tim Roth is making his inaugural jump to the boob tube to star in Lie to Me, a Fox series the network has already picked up for a 13-episode run to premiere in early 2009. Roth will play Dr. Cal Lightman, a human lie detector who specializes in the art of "deception detection." Bad guys beware.
• Get a load of this: Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy has joined the cast of Manure. Conroy will play the longtime secretary to the head of a troubled manure company. Billy Bob Thornton, Téa Leoni and Kyle MacLachlan also star in the comedy-satire being filmed in Santa Clarita.
• War, what is it good for? Some epic movies, if nothing else. Gillian Anderson is set to star in and produce a biopic of trailblazing female war journalist Martha Gellhorn, who, among her professional travails, also suffered through a failed marriage to Ernest Hemingway. The film will be based on Caroline Moorehead's 2004 bio of the writer, Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life, and will be written by The Edge of Love scribe (and Keira Knightley's mother) Sharman Macdonald.
• English Patient star Kristin Scott Thomas will make her Broadway debut in this fall's revival of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. She'll play the troubled actress Arkandina opposite Peter Sarsgaard. Previews begin Sept. 16 and the curtain goes up Oct. 1 at the Walter Kerr Theatre.