Jared Leto has been cast alongside Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner in the AIDS drug drama Dallas Buyers Club, which is starting production next week in New Orleans. It will be the first feature film in five years for Leto, who has been concentrating on his band 30 Seconds To Mars and his documentary Artifact, which won the People’s Choice Award this year at Toronto. Dallas centers on Ron Woodruff (McConaughey), who was given six months to live after contracting AIDS in 1986 and spent the next six years smuggling medicine into the U.S. to help himself and fellow sufferers. Leto will play Rayon, a cross-dressing fellow AIDS patient who meets Ron in the hospital. The role was considered a choice won and the producers were close to casting it last week, when Garner came aboard. Leto, whose past credits include Requiem For A Dream, Girl, Interrupted and Lord Of War, is repped by CAA and Untitled; CAA and Cassian Elwes rep the film’s domestic distribution rights.

Related: AFM: Jennifer Garner Near Deal To Star In ‘Dallas Buyers Club’