Femme Castings

• Amy Adams will star in the indie drama Daughter of the Queen of Sheba. Script is by Karen Croner based on the bio of NPR correspondent Jacki Lyden, centers on how a woman uses her mother's madness and delusions to empower herself. (Variety)
  
  
• Anne Hathaway will star in the romantic comedy The Fiance playing a woman who cancels wedding plans and breaks up with her seemingly perfect fiance so she can try to figure out who she really is. Her meddling parents try to patch things up between the pair, making it impossible for her to move on. (Variety)

• Naomi Watts is in negotiations to topline "My Name Is Jody Williams," that Audrey Wells wrote and will direct. Film is the true story of Jody Williams, a strong-willed teacher working for a temporary employment agency who left her life in Washington to pursue an unlikely career in global activism. Almost a decade and a half later, Williams was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for leading an international campaign to eradicate land mines. (HR)

• Anna Paquin has been tapped to star in "The Irena Sendler Story," a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation for CBS. Paquin will play Sendler, a Polish woman credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jewish children during World War II. Sendler, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, died in May at age 98. (HR)

• Amy Pietz has been tapped for the title role in Lifetime's drama pilot "The Amazing Mrs. Novak." Based on the six-part U.K. series "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard," centers on Trish Novak (Pietz), a supermarket manager who unexpectedly becomes the governor of New Jersey. Vanessa Taylor is the project's writer-showrunner. She exec produces with Carolyn Bernstein, Jane Featherstone and Stephen Garrett. (HR)

• Rachael Taylor, Amanda Walsh and "quarterlife" star Bitsie Tulloch have landed the female leads in Washingtonienne HBO's comedy pilot from "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker. Based on the semi-autobiographical book by Jessica Cutler about the sexploits of a low-level female congressional staffer with powerful men on Capitol Hill, it revolves around the professional and personal lives of three smart, sophisticated 28-year-old girls working on the Hill. Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz penned the script for "Washingtonienne" and are exec producing with Parker, Parker's producing partner Alison Benson, Sarah Condon and Stacy Traub. (HR)

• Lifetime has lined up Cybill Shepherd and Faye Dunaway to play grandmothers in the first two of its four movie adaptations of Nora Roberts novels. Shepherd will star in "High Noon" along with Emilie de Ravin and Ivan Sergei, while Dunaway will be joined in "Midnight Bayou" by Jerry O'Connell and Lauren Stamile. (HR)