Following up her overlooked drama Please Give, Nicole Holofcener is now at Fox Searchlight, where she’s wrangling together a cast for her still untitled next drama. The film is already starring Armando Iannucci collaborators Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini, but now Paranormal Activity 3 lead and star of Mira Nair‘s upcming Venice opener The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Christopher Smith has joined the lead. [Variety]

The project follows “a masseuse (Louis-Dreyfus) who falls in love with the husband (Gandolfini) of a new friend.” Smith is joining the cast as a younger man that Louis-Dreyfus meets before falling head over heals for said husband. Production starts within the next month, so hopefully we’ll see this pop up in the first half of next year.

In other casting news, Paul Schrader is deep into production on his Bret Easton Ellis-scripted sex drama The Canyons, but more actors are already being added to the ensemble. Lindsay Lohan, porn star James Deen and Nolan Funk make up the main trio and now Variety reports that Amanda Brooks (Flightplan, My Best Friend’s Girl) and Lauren Schacher (upcoming Phil Spector HBO biopic) have now been added.

Taking place in present-day Los Angeles, the film follows “the dangers of sexual obsession and ambition, both personally and professionally, among a group of young people in their 20′s and how one chance meeting connected to the past unravels all of their lives, resulting in deceit, paranoia, cruel mind games and ultimately violence.” Schacher joins as a “a shallow, twenty-something socialite named Caitlin,” and with that descriptor I don’t doubt she’ll be among similar characters. Expect a 2013 release for The Canyons.

What do you think about these latest casting additions?