Some big name casting news for you today.  Here are the headlines:

• Willem Dafoe will join Christian Bale and Casey Affleck in the dramatic thriller, Out of the Furnace, written and directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart).
• Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) will star in the 1950s period piece, Brooklyn, adapted from Colm Toibin's best-selling novel about a woman torn between her family in Ireland and her new found love for an American.

Hit the jump for more on both projects.

Variety reports that Dafoe will join Bale and Affleck in Out of the Furnace, currently shooting in picturesque Braddock, Pennsylvania.  Affleck's character is lured into a violent crime ring after his brother (Bale) lands himself in prison.  Dafoe will play a bookie who is owed a debt by Affleck's character.  The picture also stars Zoe Saldana, Woody Harrelson, Sam Shepard and Forest Whitaker.

THR has word that Mara will star in the big screen adaptation of Brooklyn, penned by Nick Hornby (About a Boy). The picture, set to shoot in both Ireland and Brooklyn in the spring of 2013, is being put together by the same team that brought forth An Education, starring Carey Mulligan.  Here is a synopsis for the Toibin novel (via Amazon):

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the hard years following World War Two. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America, she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, who loves the Dodgers and his big Italian family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.