After already having a storming 2017 with a slew of films and hit television series Big Little Lies under her belt (with a second season rumoured), Nicole Kidman is already lining up her next project.

Deadline is reporting today that the Beguiled star is set to take a role in the new film from writer/director/actor Joel Edgerton entitled Boy Erased. Edgerton, who made his debut behind the camera with 2015’s tense thriller The Gift, is again writing and directing the film which is based on a memoir by Garrard Conley and has already secured the services of Manchester by the Sea star Lucas Hedges for the lead.

lucas hedges

In addition to Kidman, it seems Oscar Winner Russell Crowe (The Mummy, Man of Steel) is also being lined up for a role in the film, with word that the Australian duo possibly playing Hedges’ character’s parents.

Here’s the synopsis for the memoir:

“The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality.

When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to “cure” him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness.”

The film is already garnering lots of interest in terms of distribution, with Annapurna Pictures, Amazon Studios, Netflix and Focus Features all vying for the rights. Filming is set to begin later this year with a release potentially set for the following awards season.