Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: The final piece of the casting puzzle is in place for Rock Of Ages, the Adam Shankman-directed adaptation of the Broadway musical for New Line Cinema. Malin Akerman is set to play the role of Constance, a journalist who intends to write an expose on decadent rocker Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise). After a seduction, and after they sing a duet on the Foreigner song I Want To Know What Love Is, they find out in a naughty bedroom romp. This has been a hot role. Shankman at first courted Anne Hathaway, who couldn’t do it because she landed the Catwoman role in The Dark Knight Rises. Then, he courted Amy Adams, but Shankman again lost out to a superhero when she landed Lois Lane in Man of Steel. Akerman joins Bryan Cranston, who plays the mayor of Los Angeles, his prudish wife that Catherine Zeta-Jones will play, Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Mary J. Blige, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough. Not a bad cast for a Chris D’Arienzo musical that started as a small off-Broadway show before moving to Broadway and now the big screen. Akerman is currently shooting Medallion opposite Nic Cage and will next be seen starring with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in the Universal Pictures comedy Wanderlust, as well as Bang Bang Club. She’s repped by WME and Sanders Armstrong Caserta.