Diane Kruger Joins Cast Of ‘JT Leroy’ Movie – Cannes

EXCLUSIVE: Diane Kruger has joined the cast of Justin Kelly’s JT Leroy, the feature film based on the true story of a pair of woman who created the persona of a boy-wonder author, fooling the literary community, the fashion world, and the Hollywood elite for six years before the hoax was finally revealed.

Kristen Stewart early on boarded the project to play Savannah Knoop, who dressed up as Leroy who was a fabrication of writer Laura Albert, Knoop’s sister in law. Laura Dern is set to play Albert, while Kruger will play Eva, a French actress who brings JT to Paris, falls for him, then helps turn his life story into a film.

Production is set to begin in July on the pic, adapted from Knoop’s book; there was also a documentary, Jeff Feuerzeig’s Author: The JT Leroy Story, which bowed at Sundance 2016.

Fortitude International is selling the feature film at the Cannes Film Festival beginning this week. Cassian Elwes is financing and producing with Mark Amin’s Sobini Films, LBI Entertainment’s Julie Yorn and Patrick Walmsley, and Thirty Three Management’s Thor Bradwell. Fortitude’s Nadine de Barros, Sobini’ Cami Winikoff and Tyler Boehm, and Gary Pearl are executive producers.

Kruger’s next pic is Fatih Akin’s In The Fade, which is playing in the Cannes competition next week. She is repped by UTA, Untitled, Altitude Management and Peikoff/Mahan.