Angela Bassett to Star in OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Deadline.com reports that Angela Bassett has joined the cast of the upcoming film OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN. The actress will join previously announced cast members Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart. Antoine Fuqua is set to direct.

Basett will portray director of the Secret Service, Lynne Jacobs in the White House action drama. The plot centers on the president (Eckhart) and "key members of his administration taken hostage, and a Secret Service agent (Butler) who tries to stop the plot."

The script was penned by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt with Mark Gill, Alan Siegel and Butler producing the Millennium Films project. Avi Lerner and Trevor Short are executive producing. Shooting is set to begin early next month. 

The Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winning actress recently appeared on stage in the role of Camae starring opposite Academy Award-nominee Samuel L. Jackson as DR. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Broadway production of the new play, The Mountaintop.