Jennifer Jason Leigh Lands Female Lead In Quentin Tarantino's 'The Hateful Eight'

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Always excellent, and sorely underutilized, Jennifer Jason Leigh is one of those actresses who is so good, it's easy to take her for granted. And indeed, Hollywood certainly has as it's been years since the actress has had a leading role. But Quentin Tarantino is about to fix that situation.

The director has cast Leigh as the female lead in "The Hateful Eight." She'll be taking the part of Daisy Domergue, played in the live reading of the script this past spring by Amber Tamblyn, and rumored at one point for Jennifer Lawrence. And given that Leigh is older than those two names, it suggests that Tarantino has aged up Daisy in rewrites. The character is a prisoner in a stagecoach, who along with a couple of bounty hunters, a would-be sheriff and the coach driver, enter a haberdashery where the action and tension reaches a boil (check out more details here).

Leigh joins a cast that's expected to include Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Walton Goggins, Bruce Dern and Denis Minochet. Filming will begin next year, with the movie to be released in 2015.