casting couch

Jake Gyllenhaal Will Gamble in Mississippi Grind

Jury member Jake Gyllenhaal attends the Closing Ceremony during day ten of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival at the Grand Hyatt on February 18, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
142431377LM030_A_Celebratio Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Jake Gyllenhaal is producing and is in talks to star in Mississippi Grind, the new film by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the writing-directing duo behind Ryan Gosling’s Oscar-nom-getter Half Nelson as well as 2010’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story*. The film centers on two gambling addicts enabling each other on a road trip through the south. Gyllenhaal would play the younger vagabond, while the elder — which THR dubs “a plum role for Hollywood’s fortysomething set” — has yet to be cast.

* This post has been corrected to note that while Gyllenhaal is producing the film, his deal to star in it has not yet been finalized.

Jake Gyllenhaal Will Gamble in Mississippi Grind