Ashley Judd Joins Divergent, As Shailene Woodley’s Mother

For a few years in the late 90s and early 00s, Ashley Judd was a big star, but then she fell into the giant hole Hollywood reserves for actresses in their late 30s and early 40s, which few manage to negotiate with their star power still intact. Now it appears she’s found the slightly dubious light on the other side of that, when she’s allowed to play authority roles and mothers.

She recently starred in Olympus Has Fallen and now she’s signed up to star in Divergent, according to THR. Judd will play Natalie Prior, the mother of Shailene Woodley’s Tris. The story is set in a world where citizens are divided into five distinct factions, based on personality traits. The story follows Tris, who is a ‘divergent’, someone who doesn’t completely fit into any one of the stringent factions. She discovers a conspiracy to destroy all the divergents, and must learn why these people are seen as being so dangerous before it’s too late.

Maggie Q, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Jai Courtney, Theo James, and Kate Winslet also star, with Neil Burger directing from a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor and Evan Daugherty, adapted from the novel by Veronica Roth. Shooting began last week in Chicago.