* There's really only one good reason to continue watching HBO's True Blood and that's Nelsan Ellis' consistently entertaining performance as Lafayette. He's been making some moves on the big screen as well, lately, recently playing Martin Luther King Jr. in Lee Daniels' The Butler, and now he'll join another high-profile biopic. Ellis will join Chadwick Boseman in the James Brown film, Get On Up, playing Brown's longtime friend and fellow musician, Bobby Byrd. Tate Taylor is directing, having worked with Ellis and co-stars Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer on The Help. [Deadline]
* Chris Evans has found a sexy co-star for his directorial debut, 1:30 Train. The indie drama has just added Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness), playing a Manhattan woman in need who spends a romantic evening with a down 'n out saxophone player portrayed by Evans. Ron Bass (Snow Falling on Cedars) wrote the script, and this one should begin filming soon because Evans has a to dress up as Captain America again soon. [TheWrap]
* Homeland star Damian Lewis has joined Werner Herzog's Gertrude Bell biopic, Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman as the famous traveler, writer, and British political attaché . Robert Pattinson is presumably still in line to play T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia, with Lewis taking on the part of Charles Doughty-Wylie, a Lieutenant Colonel who had an unconsummated affair with Bell. I'm guessing it will be very consummated in the movie version. Just call it a hunch. He died young and his death is said to have caused Bell to throw herself into work as a distraction. The film will center on her exploits at the turn of the century and the hand she played in developing the Middle East.
