Having played the super brainy Rory Gilmore on TV for so many years, Alexis Bledel is still adored by many women my age. But today I have no choice but to hate her. She's in the enviable position of playing James McAvoy's wife in The Conspirator, the Robert Redford-directed drama about Mary Surratt (Robin Wright Penn), the only woman to be tried for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Bledel is among a whole host of people who have joined the cast today, according to Variety, alongside Tom Wilkinson, Evan Rachel Wood and Kevin Kline. Wilkinson will play a mentor to McAvoy's character, a war hero lawyer defending Surratt, with Wood playing Surratt's daughter and Kline as the War Secretary Edwin Stanton. Given that Surratt was a Confederate sympathizer, both Penn and Wood will probably be expected to turn in Southern accents. Penn wasn't too bad as Jenny in Forrest Gump back in the day, but I'm honestly afraid of what Wood might come up with. (Editor's note: I have been reminded that in Whatever Works, a movie I saw and liked, Wood had a great Southern accent. So I stand corrected and embarrassed).

Though I'm still so-so on Bledel's acting skills (a direct result of having suffered through Post Grad), the rest of the cast seems stellar, and it's exciting to see a take on Lincoln and the Civil War that hasn't been done before. Shooting has already begun in Savannah, Georgia (we'll have set photos posted later this evening), and it's going to be exciting to see all these people together in one place.