Screen Talk: Ramsay's right on target

Lynne Ramsay's ambitions to direct Natalie Portman in Wild West thriller Jane Got a Gun have corralled strong backing.

Producer Scott Steindorff's Scott Pictures is ponying up to produce and finance the movie. It centres on a woman who has to turn to an ex-lover for help to protect her outlaw husband from his former gang.

Hungry for a hot new role

Jena Malone, the Sucker Punch actress, is in talks for a big part in The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. She's set to star as snide tribute Johanna Mason, a key role that will be reprised in the trilogy's third instalment, Mockingjay. Malone is being lined up to play the axe-wielding former Hunger Games winner.

One to burn after reading, Brad?

Brad Pitt's mother is causing a stir among Hollywood's famously liberal chattering classes. The actor, a public supporter of Barack Obama and the Democrats, is the talk of the town after his mum, Jane Pitt, penned an anti-gay letter urging Christians to vote for Mitt Romney in a Missouri newspaper.

Motel books in some more stars

Crispin Glover and Martin Klebba recently checked into the cast of Motel, a crime thriller directed by David Grovic. John Cusack and Robert De Niro also room in it. Based on an original screenplay by James Russo, with a rewrite by Grovic and Paul Conway, Motel sees Cusack play a hit man on a job gone wrong.

Mum's the word for MacDowell

Andie MacDowell is to appear in Mothers Day alongside real-life daughter Rainey Qualley. The film, which also stars Susan Sarandon, Eva Amurri Martino and Christina Ricci, details 12 interweaving mother-daughter relationships taking place over the course of the same Mother's Day.