Rachel Miner Tagged Articles at Cinematical

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.

Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day, Kill Bill), an actress who certainly lives up to her name, has signed on to star in the true story Street. Fox will play the mentor to a sixteen year-old runaway girl named Lexi. Laura Ramsey (The Covenant, She's the Man, the upcoming adaptation of Scott Smith's The Ruins) will play Lexi, a young woman with a "troubled mother" and a "convict father." She runs away with "a boyfriend who ends up abusing her," and "she finds shelter and love with a drug-addicted street kid who teaches her how to survive in a tough Portland, Oregon neighborhood." Toby Hemingway of The Covenant will play the drug-addicted street kid. Rounding out the cast is Rachel Miner as Lexi's "caring sister," you might know her from Bully, The Black Dahlia, or more likely -- from her brief stint as Macaulay Culkin's wife.

I'm generally not a big fan of movies where gorgeous young teen actors try to earn some indie cred by playing homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts, etc. Hopefully this film will dig a little deeper than most in the "troubled teen" subgenre. York Shackleton (sounds like the name of a villain in an 80's teen comedy, no?) wrote and will direct the film. He based his script on the life of the film's co-producer, Kristen Jensen. Shackleton is a former professional snowboarder and actor who also wrote and directed Kush, about a young drug dealer torn between the money and a desire to leave the lifestyle. That film is vaguely scheduled for release in "2007." Shackleton's credits as an actor include I Know What You Did Last Winter (I could have sworn that series had ended, has anyone seen Winter?). Let me just recommend that Shackleton throw Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" over the end credits of Street. That'll add $10 million to the box office right there. Remember how great that video was?