We’ve got a couple of interesting casting stories to share this afternoon.  First up, Felicity Jones (Like Crazy) has landed the female lead opposite Jonah Hill and James Franco in the drama True Story.  The film recounts the head-spinning relationship between disgraced New York Times journalist Michael Finkel (Hill) and accused murderer Christian Longo (Franco).  Deadline reports that Jones will play Finkel’s long-suffering girlfriend “who tries to stand by her guy even after his screw-ups cost them everything.”  Rupert Goold (Richard II) will direct.

Additionally, Stacy Keach has joined the ever-growing cast of Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill ForVariety reports that Keach will play “a chief villain,” mob boss Wallenquist.  Prodution is currently underway on the film which also stars Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, and many more.  The pic opens on October 4th.  Hit the jump for a synopsis for True Story.

true-story-book-cover

Here’s a synopsis of Finkel’s memoir True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa:

In the haunting tradition of Joe McGinniss’s Fatal Vision and Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the HeartTrue Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa weaves a spellbinding tale of murder, love, and deceit with a deeply personal inquiry into the slippery nature of truth.

The story begins in February of 2002, when a reporter in Oregon contacts New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel with a startling piece of news. A young, highly intelligent man named Christian Longo, on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for killing his entire family, has recently been captured in Mexico, where he’d taken on a new identity—Michael Finkel of the New York Times.

The next day, on page A-3 of the Times, comes another bit of troubling news: a note, written by the paper’s editors, explaining that Finkel has falsified parts of an investigative article and has been fired. This unlikely confluence sets the stage for a bizarre and intense relationship. After Longo’s arrest, the only journalist the accused murderer will speak with is the real Michael Finkel. And as the months until Longo’s trial tick away, the two men talk for dozens of hours on the telephone, meet in the jailhouse visiting room, and exchange nearly a thousand pages of handwritten letters.

With Longo insisting he can prove his innocence, Finkel strives to uncover what really happened to Longo’s family, and his quest becomes less a reporting job than a psychological cat-and-mouse game—sometimes redemptively honest, other times slyly manipulative. Finkel’s pursuit pays off only at the end, when Longo, after a lifetime of deception, finally says what he wouldn’t even admit in court—the whole, true story. Or so it seems. [Amazon]