Kimberly Peirce
casts lead in Iraq war drama

Australian actress Abbie Cornish has signed on to play the female lead in Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce's Iraq war drama Stop-Loss. The Paramount Pictures project centers on a soldier who returns home from Iraq to Texas and is recalled to duty through the military's "stop-loss" procedure. The soldier then refuses to return to battle.

Paramount and queer filmmaker Peirce--who wrote the script with Mark Richard--are in the process of casting the male lead. The studio is eyeing a late-summer start date. Peirce's only feature to date, 1999's Boys Don't Cry, yielded an Oscar win for Hilary Swank and a nomination for Chloe Sevigny.

Cornish was the toast of last year's Cannes Film Festival for her starring turn in Somersault, which opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles. Her credits also include the gritty drug drama Candy, opposite Heath Ledger, and Ridley Scott's upcoming Russell Crowe vehicle A Good Year. (Tatiana Siegel, Reuters)