Rooney Mara will star in Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects in a role that was originally slated for Blake Lively. (PHOTO: REUTERS / Danny Moloshok).

Rooney Mara has added another big-time Hollywood director to her list of projects this year.

Steven Soderbergh has hired Mara for the thriller Side Effects, Deadline reports.

Mara, 26, will join an already star-studded cast which includes Jude Law, Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

According to Deadline, Mara's character is a sexy but unsettled young woman who is taking serious amounts of prescription drugs to deal with anxiety and depression surrounding the pending release of her husband from prison.

The role is not a far cry from Lisbeth Salander, Mara's character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher.

Just last week, Mara received the biggest news of her career to date: a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

I knew there was a very small chance . . . I was very surprised, and I feel very honored and humbled to be a part of a list of women that I've looked up to for a while, Mara told the LA Times of the nomination.

Also nominated in the category are Michelle Williams, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis, who won the SAG Award for Best Actress on Sunday night.

In the Soderbergh film, Mara replaces Blake Lively, who was originally considered for the role but was dropped because financier Annapurna Pictures was not a fan of the casting, according to Indiewire's Playlist.

In addition to Side Effects, which will be distributed by Open Road, Mara's filming schedule will also consist of Terrence Malick's Lawless (opposite Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett) and The Girl Who Played With Fire, the sequel to Dragon Tattoo.

Since its Dec. 2011 release, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has underperformed at the box office, despite grossing more than $184 million in worldwide ticket sales. To compare, other holiday releases have fared stronger: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ($469 million); Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked ($308 million); Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ($571 million). (Numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo).

Side Effects, which begins filming in April, is slated for a 2013 release.

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