There's a whole slew of female casting notices that have popped up over at Variety:

While Six Feet Under has been dead and buried for a while, two of the show's alums have got new feature gigs. Justina Machado, who played Vanessa on the show, has picked up a role in Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words. Unfortunately, there's no word on who she'll play -- perhaps someone who steals some of Murphy's last words from him? She was great at nagging on Six Feet. Meanwhile, Momma Fisher, Frances Conroy, has picked up a gig in the Polish brothers' Manure, as a character named Agnes May. THR says she will be "a longtime secretary" at the manure business.

Then there's Kate Jennings Grant. She has picked up a role in The Rebound, that Catherine Zeta-Jones-starring May-December romcom. She'll play Catherine's best friend, Daphne. But before then, we'll get to see her play Diane Sawyer in the upcoming film Frost/Nixon. (That's pretty spot-on casting -- visually, at least.)

Finally, there are a few stars for Rotimi Rainwater's new indie film Truckstop -- Rachel Miner and Mimi Rogers. Mimi, of course, is the ex of Tom Cruise, back in the days before young wives and Scientology buzz, while you might remember Miner from her role as Dani in Californiacation. According to Rainwater's MySpace blog, the film focuses on "a high school student with cerebral palsy who works at a Truckstop and befriends Vicki, the local prostitute." They become friends, overcome obstacles, etc. Unless things have changed since initial contact was made, Miner will play the prostitute.

...and here is another round of Variety casting bites:

Last July, Canadian actress Laura Vandervoort nabbed herself a super gig as the role of Supergirl in Smallville. Now it seems that she's heading for the seas. She's scored a lead role in Into the Blue 2. Vandervoort will play a girl on a professional scuba team who get hired to find Columbus' hidden treasure. I guess there was more to the story than the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

Meanwhile, that Scott Caan-written story Mercy has got itself a leading lady. Wendy Glenn, who recently played Isabella in The L Word (who played Bev in Lez Girls), will play the title role, who is the love interest of Caan's character. The story is about a cynical writer who writes about love, but doesn't believe it until ... Mercy.

Lastly, there's Kerry Washington. She played Della Bea Robinson in Ray, Jasmine in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Alicia Masters in Fantastic Four, and Kay Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Now she gets to be married to a doomed husband. She's signed on to play Eddie Murphy's wife in the comedy A Thousand Words. Her character wants her husband to settle down and spend more time with the family, but I doubt he'll have much to say about it, since the guy finds out that he'll die after he utters his next one thousand words.

Combining the words Allison Janney with indie comedy is usually music to my ears. In the last few years alone, she's rocked roles like Allie Stiffle in Chumscrubber and Bren MacGuff in Juno. Now The Hollywood Reporter posts that she's signing on for two bigger-budget roles -- one that will have her working with Sam Mendes, and the other that will have her directed by Brian Robbins. Well, at least one should be completely excellent.

For Mendes, she's taking a role in his upcoming comedy, which is currently and tentatively titled This Must Be the Place. Janney will play "a loud, brassy, decidedly un-PC woman who admittedly has a few screws loose." (Could Mendes have cast that any better?) "She reunites with a former employee in Phoenix, where the expectant mother/employer (Maya Rudolph) begins a tour of the country with her husband (John Krasinski) to find the best place to raise their child."

Director Brian Robbins' name keeps popping up, and still, all I can think is: "Hey, it's that middle-of-the-road actor from the '80s." He had a bunch of 1-episode stints on the big, classic shows from that decade like Cagney & Lacey, The Facts of Life, Three's Company, and Knight Rider before nabbing the part of Eric on Head of the Class. He's the guy who had the little, black and white pictures in my issues of Teen Beat because the Coreys, the Brat Pack, and other cuties ruled the color spreads. But he's actually had a lot more success directing, mainly in that uber-fluffy sort of way. These days, he's got a directorial man-crush on Eddie Murphy and the projects just keep coming.

They brought us Norbit, we're about to get a little Starship Dave, and now Variety reports that they will team up for a DreamWorks comedy called A Thousand Words. To give the duo credit, it's an interesting idea: the movie will focus on "a glib man who finds out that he has only 1,000 words left to speak before he dies." Steve Koren, the guy who penned Click, wrote the screenplay. This being said, it all depends on execution, and it doesn't help that they want to rush this before the strike. But that might just be a little tricky -- Murphy has a slew of projects stacking up, from Nowhereland to Fantasy Island. But get ready, sports fans! At some point, we'll probably have yet another battle between the critics and those who love the world of Robbins!