Bryce Dallas Howard Joins Hereafter
She's on for Clint Eastwood's latest




She's just finished playing a member of the undead - controversially stepping in as Victoria in Twilight: Eclipse - but now Bryce Dallas Howard will tackle death with Clint Eastwood.

The actress has signed on to Dirty Harry's latest directing job, which will see him reunite with Invictus' Matt Damon for Hereafter, which sees three people (a regular American working man, a French journalist and a London school boy) touched by the reaper in different ways.

Eastwood is already busy shooting (how else will he finish three more films before most other directors have tackled one?) and the movie will take in locations across Paris, London, Hawaii and San Francisco before it's finished.

Planned for a December 2010 release, we're betting - given Clint's recent run - that it'll end up another awards contender...


Rhys Ifans Up For Passion Play
Megan Fox, Mickey Rourke already aboard




Rhys Ifans and RocknRolla's Tobey Kebbell have joined the cast of writer/director Mitch Glazer's new indie, Passion Play.

The intriguing pic already features Mickey Rourke as a down-and-out trumpet player who thinks he can find redemption through a "caged circus freak with angelic wings growing out of her back". And providing the heavenly body? Megan Fox.

There's no word on what either Ifans or Kebbell will be playing in the film, but they're due to report to the set next week in New Mexico to start shooting.

Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Rhys Ifans in one film? This we have to see...

Ray Stevenson Prepares For Volstagg



He's already played Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, but now British actor and all-round top bloke, Ray Stevenson, is set to take another stab at the Marvel Universe in Kenneth Branagh's mighty Marvel adaptation, Thor.
Stevenson was cast recently as Volstagg The Valiant, one of the members of the Warriors Three (think the Jordanaires to the God of Thunder's Elvis), alongside Stuart Townsend and Tadanobu Asano. There should be one problem, though - Volstagg is, how you say, on the large side and, with filming set to start in January, Stevenson has very little time to bargain bucket his way to a new and improved waistline.
Luckily, Empire caught up with him recently and found that a solution is at hand, in the shape of a fat suit. "It's fantastic," said a beaming Stevenson. "I've tried the suit on, and what they've done is kind of sex him up: he's sort of slimmer but rounder."
We're not sure we're up for an exuberantly sexed-up Brian Blessed-alike, but Stevenson clarifies: "He's got every bit of that Falstaffian verve and vigour, and a bit of a beergut to suggest that enormous appetite, but he's not the sort of Weeble-shaped figure he is in the comics. He's Falstaff with muscles. I've got this amazing foam-injected undersuit that flexes with me. I can't wait!"
Neither can we. Thor also stars Chris Hemsworth (as the title character), Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman and Idris Elba. With a cast like that, it could well be bloody marvellous. Pun absolutely intended.