(FROM VARIETY) – Virginia Madsen (Sideways) has been tapped for Amelia, the Amelia Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is directing from a script by Ron Bass (Entrapment). The movie will tell the story of how the aviation legend's famous trans-Atlantic flight came to be and will also chronicle her rocky relationship with her husband, publisher George Putnam (Gere). Madsen will play Dorothy Binney, Putnam's first wife. Shooting starts this month. Madsen's upcoming projects include the IFC comedy Diminished Capacity, which stars Matthew Broderick, and Gold Circle Films and Lionsgate's supernatural thriller The Haunting in Connecticut. Madsen and her mother, Elaine Madsen, also collaborated on the upcoming documentary I Know a Woman Like That, about the lives of women ages 65-94. (Variety)