Fresh off the Pretty Little Liars finale (in which – spoilers! – she played two important roles), Troian Bellisario has landed a major movie role.
According to Variety, the real-life Spencer Hastings will star in Richard Linklater's adaptation of Maria Semple’s 2012 book Where’d You Go, Bernadette. According to the report, Bellisario will play Becky, the first person that the titular Bernadette Fox (played by Cate Blanchett) will meet on her globe-trotting journey, which includes a stint in Antarctica. It's a coveted role — and the perfect new venture for the person we've watched for seven seasons on a teen drama.
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While a role in a Linklater film opposite Cate Blanchett is no joke, it's hardly the first move that Bellisario has made leading up to the final episode of her long-running Freeform series. In addition to directing an episode of season 7 of Pretty Little Liars — an episode that featured the appearance of twin Alex Drake, no less — Bellisario wrote her first feature, titled Feed, which she also stars in. The story, about a girl seeing visions of her dead twin brother while grappling with an eating disorder, is something that the actress, who has been open about her experience with mental illness, said was extremely personal.
"There were so many people who thought that [my eating disorder] was about losing weight or being skinny," Bellisario explained to Interview Magazine. "I couldn't quite get them to understand that it was about control on a very, very literal level."
She added:
"I thought, 'If I can tell a story that puts the audience in a position to make a similar choice to the one that I made in my young life, maybe I could get them to empathize.'"
While she will be in front of the camera for the upcoming novel adaptation, it's just another example of how the star has a great Hollywood career ahead — one where she can plan exactly where she wants to go next.