7/28/2011

Alia Shawkat joins indie comedy He Loves Me, from the directors of Little Miss Sunshine

Alia Shawkat is probably most recognizable to folks as Maeby Funke from cult comedy series Arrested Development, but she's churned out a pretty nice film career in mostly supporting roles in stuff like Amreeka, The Runaways, and Whip It. She also has a memorable bit in this year's Ed Helms comedy, Cedar Rapids. Now she's lined up two indie films that promise to keep her busy until the Arrested Development movie gets off the ground. If it ever does.

She's joined thecast of He Loves Me, the indie comedy written and starring Zoe Kazan(It's Complicated), directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton(Little Miss Sunshine). Starring Paul Dano as a novelist who tries to break a writer's block by penning letters to the woman he thinks would love him. The result is that he ends up willing her into existence, kinda Weird Science style. Shawkat will play Mabel, a woman with a crush on Dano's character and an obsession with one of his story characters.

Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Steve Coogan, Deborah Ann Woll, Elliott Gould, Toni Trucks, Antonio Banderas, and Aasif Mandvi make up the rest of the cast.