( Reuter )- French actress Vanessa Paradis is attached to star alongside Michael Madsen in her first English-language film, its producer said Tuesday.
"The Midwife Crisis," the story of a bizarre love affair between a midwife and a loan shark, is tentatively set for a seven-week shoot starting September in New York.
Production firm Gaumont will partner on the film with an as-yet-unannounced U.S. producer.
Director Mabrouk el Mechri plans to cast U.S. actors for his big screen follow-up to 2005's "Virgil" and upcoming Gallic June release, Gaumont's Jean-Claude Van Damme starrer "JCVD."
"It's not your typical cheesy romantic comedy. It's not Hugh Grant," El Mechri said.
"I don't want to film New York like a tourist. No squirrels in Union Square, no zooming in from the Empire State Building to a close-up of Vanessa Paradis."
Paradis, 35, won a Cesar Award -- France's equivalent of an Oscar -- for the 1989 film "Noce Blanche," but has largely focused on raising her two children with boyfriend Johnny Depp.