Monaghan adapts to life as a ‘Trucker’

With a pair of pending releases coming this fall and a signing this week to star in D.J. Caruso’s “Eagle Eye”, I have a feeling that Michelle Monaghan’s clout is about to rise. It appears that working with Tom Cruise on MI3 gave her some new ideas about wearing “different hats”. Variety reports that the actress will wear a truckers cap for the headlining indie role, but she will be an exec producer of Trucker with John Allen, Robert Kessel, Pam Hirsch, Ed Hart, Bruce Lunsford and Frank Frattaroli.

Co-starring with Nathan Fillion, Benjamin Bratt, Joey Lauren Adams and Jimmy Bennett, Monaghan plays a female truck driver who lives a careless life with no responsibility until she has to take in her estranged 11-year-old son after his father (Bratt) is hospitalized. The trade notes that she attached herself before the film went out for financing, and she went so far as to get training and a license to drive a tractor-trailer.

This is a Plum Pictures project that sees James Mottern in his feature directing debut. Plum's Celine Rattray, Galt Niederhoffer and Daniela Taplin Lundberg will produce with Scott Hanson.