Tony Award winner Nina Arianda is continuing her big screen takeover, with Deadline reporting the budding movie star has joined the cast of “Lucky Them”, the final film legendary actor Paul Newman had been working on at the time of his death in 2008. Toni Colette leads the cast that also includes Thomas Haden Church, Oliver Platt, Ryan Eggold and Ahna O’Reilly.
Emily Wachtel and Huck Botko wrote the script and Botko is directing the film about a female rock journalist (Colette) who, on assignment, goes on a journey to track down her musician ex-boyfriend (Church). The semi-autobiographical story is described as a “late bloomers coming-of-age quirky romantic comedy” and will see Colette’s character living in New York and finding herself while most of her friends have already settled down. Arianda will play Colette’s best friend. Filming began last weekend in Seattle.
Arianda, a recent Tony winner for “Venus in Fur” on Broadway, recently landed a string of big screen projects, the most high profile of which being the role of Janis Joplin in Sean Durkin’s biopic of the late singer. Screen credits thus far include Sundance premieres “Higher Ground” and “Win Win”, and Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning “Midnight in Paris.”
Paul Newman had been working on “un-romantic comedy” “Lucky Them” when he passed away in 2008, and his wife Joanne Woodward signed on to executive produce the film last year in order to see it get made. Now, it looks like it finally will, with a cast that includes Thomas Haden Church, Toni Colette, “The Help” star Ahna O’Reilly and “90210″ star Ryan Eggold and Oliver Platt. 
