Since she first came to the attention of many moviegoers (like myself) with her completely loony and lovable performance in Happy-Go-Lucky last year, Sally Hawkins has been pretty much missing from the movie scene. She has a tiny, tiny scene in An Education, and will be in Never Let Me Go with Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley next year, but thus far hasn't done that post-buzz overexposure-- and thank God for that.

In keeping with her tendency to take roles in tiny indies, Hawkins is moving on to Dirty Girl, the directorial debut from Abe Sylvia about two teenagers-- a trampy girl and a overweight gay boy-- who team up to find the girl's real father. Variety writes that Hawkins and William H. Macy have signed on, though it doesn't say how they'll fit into the story. The movie already stars Lisa Kudrow along with Juno Temple and Jeremy Dozier, who we can safely assume will be playing the teenagers. Temple was good in a small role in Atonement, and Dozier at least looks the part; if they're smart enough to cast Sally Hawkins, though, we can probably assume they've got good ideas here.