It took me years to get that horrible Natalie Imbruglia pop song out of my head, and now the singer/actress might be about to return to the spotlight. According to The Herald Sun, the Aussie-born actress was recently in Sydney to film a "secret screen test" for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is gearing up production as we speak. No further information was available on exactly what kind of part Imbruglia was testing for, but one can only assume the 32 year-old beauty was up for the female lead. Imbruglia has recently re-focused her career on acting and back in October we noted that she was playing the lead in the Australian drama Elise, about a missing child. She also appeared in a 2003 action comedy called Johnny English, which was unseen by me but was apparently not very good.

Earlier rumors had Maggie Q latching onto a lead female role in X4, but nothing has been confirmed yet and there's always a possibility that there could be a female villain in the mix. Liev Schreiber is also supposedly circling the role of young Stryker, but we recently passed on the news that Brian Cox is also putting X4 on the resume he's currently sending around, so that adds to the confusion. One of our commenters recently pointed out, however, that the film may be going in the direction of acknowledging that Wolverine is a very old character, which would necessitate the young and old Strykers both being in the film. Makes sense, right?

"The dingo's got my baby!" I've never seen A Cry in the Dark, in which Meryl Streep utters that immortal line with a very strong "Australian" accent, but I know it's based on a true story about a woman charged with murdering her baby daughter. (She claimed that she saw a dingo stealing her child.) Naturally, that's where my thoughts strayed when I read about a new film entitled Elise, whose plot keywords, according to IMDb, include "Missing Child" and "Australia." Natalie Imbruglia is set to star as the titular character, according to a press release available at the web site for Inside Film.

Imbruglia got her start on an Australian soap opera in the early 90s before her pop hit "Torn" ("I'm cold and I am shamed, lying naked on the floor") raced up the US charts in 1998. I loved the music video for the song, which featured Imbruglia singing, dancing and romancing, intercut with apparently dramatized behind the scenes footage of the video shoot. She appeared in the spy spoof Johnny English in 2003; Elise will be her first lead role.

Elise is based on Closed for Winter, the debut novel by Georgia Blain. In the book, Elise is just eight years old when her sister disappears. Two decades pass and Elise's personal life has stalled out; she realizes she must come to grips with the true circumstances of her sister's disappearance. Interestingly, Blain pointed out in an interview that the book is set in the beach suburbs of Adelaide, Australia. Imbruglia grew up in a small beach town in Australia, so perhaps that will help her relate to the character. She posted a message on her official site last week saying that she has been in Adelaide since the beginning of October for rehearsals. James Bogle scripted and will direct. Principal photography begins this week in Adelaide, apparently without any dingos in sight.