Bel Powley To Star As Carrie Pilby

Fresh from her critical success in Marielle Heller's The Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Bel Powley has signed up for another adaptation of a novel. She'll play the titular **Carrie Pilby{ =nofollow}, as director Susan Johnson brings Caren Lissner's book to the screen. Eddie Izzard, Tom Wilkinson and Jason Ritter are also among the cast.

The coming-of-age tale involves the precociously talented Carrie graduating at 19 from Harvard, but struggles to fit in with and make sense of the wider world when she's cut free from the Ivy League institution. Visiting a shrink once a week at her father's urging, she's given a project: name the things she loves, do some of them, join something, celebrate New Year and go on a date with someone. We follow her awkward progress as she ticks the boxes.

Kara Holden (Meant To Be) and Dean Craig (Death At A Funeral) wrote the screenplay, after producer Suzanne McNeill Farwell (The Intern) fell in love with the book and grabbed the rights. Powley's gain is Hailee Steinfeld's loss, since the latter was cast previously but had to drop out due to a schedule clash.

Powley already also has Equals and Detour in the bag, and is attached to A Storm In The Stars and Ashes In The Snow. The Diary Of A Teenage Girl is out in the UK tomorrow (August 7), and Carrie Pilby starts shooting in New York this autumn.