Matt Smith Joins Film Adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES

According to The Hollywood Reporter, former DOCTOR WHO star Matt Smith has signed on for the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, a spin on Jane Austen's classic romance novel. Burr Steers will direct.

In the book, "Liz Bennett (James), is pressured by her family to marry into a wealthy upper-class home and chafes at the stiff societal ways of 1800s England. Instead, she feels that she should help defend the countryside against the onslaught of a horrifying zombie plague."

Smith will take on the role of "Mr. Collins, a parson who is on the lookout for a wife and proposes to Bennett."

Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Douglas Booth and Bella Heathcote also star.

Smith initially aspired to be a professional footballer, but spondylosis forced him out of the sport. After joining the National Youth Theatre and studying Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, he became an actor in 2003, performing in plays like Murder in the Cathedral,Fresh Kills, The History Boys and On the Shore of the Wide World in London theatres. Extending his repertoire into West End theatre, he has since performed in the stage adaptation of Swimming with Sharks with Christian Slater, followed a year later by a critically acclaimed performance as Henry in That Face.

Before his role in Doctor Who, Smith's first television role came in 2006 as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North while his first major role in television came as Danny in the 2007 BBC series Party Animals. Smith, who was announced as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in January 2009, is the youngest person to play the character in the British television series. He left the series at the end of the 2013 Christmas Day special, "The Time of the Doctor".