This Is Us star Chrissy Metz lands first feature-film starring role

Chrissy Metz has landed her first leading role on the big screen.

The Emmy-nominated This Is Us star has inked a deal to star in The Impossible from Fox 2000, EW has confirmed. The film is an adaptation of Joyce Smith’s faith-based book The Impossible: The Miraculous Story of a Mother’s Faith and Her Child’s Resurrection, which chronicles the astounding recovery of a teenage boy named John who had been lifeless for an hour at the hospital after falling through the ice on a frozen lake in Missouri.

Metz will play Joyce, mother of John, who turned to prayer and begged God to save her son when his heart began to beat again.

Roxann Dawson (The Americans) will direct the film, which is being written by Grant Nieporte (Seven Pounds) and produced by DeVon Franklin (Miracles From Heaven).

Metz, whose credits also include American Horror Story and My Name Is Earl, was nominated last year for an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy for her work on This Is Us. This May, she’ll hit the stage, starring in a revival of Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

Production on The Impossible begins in March, the month in which Metz’s memoir This Is Me: Loving the Person You Are Today will be released.

Deadline Hollywood first reported the casting news.