Chelsea Handler Means War

Late night talk show host, comedienne and author Chelsea Handler has landed a role in McG's **This Means War, according to Deadline. She'll take the best friend role, lending support to Reese Witherspoon who has to deal with being the object of Chris Pine and Tom Hardy's affections.

You might think that that sounds like no great hardship, but with both men playing super-spy types who go to increasingly destructive ends to win Witherspoon's character over, it could be less awesome than it sounds.

McG's CIA action rom-com has had a revolving door of leading men, with Bradley Cooper, Sam Worthington, Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence all attached at one time or another during the script's decade-long journey to the screen. Filming has started now though, so there's no escape.

Handler's cable show Chelsea Lately averages half a million viewers per episode (occasionally more on YouTube{ =nofollow}), and her profile is certainly rising. Her three books, My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, and Hi Vodka, It's Me, Chelsea, have all been US bestsellers, she's in the upcoming Russell Brand bunny comedy Hop, and she presented this year's MTV Awards. It's not yet time to give her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but she's moved some way beyond National Lampoon's Cattle Call.

This Means War, which counts Will Smith among its producers, started filming a couple of weeks ago.