After spending time on screen this year with Fast cars and hulking heroes, Michelle Rodriguez is switching gears for a new role. She’s joined the adaptation of kid’s book **Milton’s Secret{
Rodriguez will become part of a cast that already includes Donald Sutherland, David Sutcliffe, Mia Kirshner, Sheila McCarthy and Hays Welford. Barnet Bain is in the director’s chair, working from a script he adapted alongside Donald Martin and Sara B. Cooper.
The book, published in 2009 by The Power Of Now author Eckhart Tolle and co-writer Robert Friedman, was an attempt to translate his live-in-the-moment philosophy for a younger readership. The Milton of the title is the story's young protagonist (William Ainscough), who learns to overcome his fear of bullies and other childhood nightmares by living in the moment, and ceasing to "project his past fears into the future". Sutherland is his grandfather and instead of packing him off into an arena to do battle with other kids, tries to help. Rodriguez will be a school teacher who also does her part to lift the boy’s spirits.
Bain, who nabbed the rights to Tolle and Friedman’s tome a while ago, has already started shooting and will be in production in Ontario until the end of the month.