Tracie Thoms Completes Principal Cast of Rent Film as Joanne

Tracie Thoms will play lesbian lawyer Joanne Jefferson in the upcoming film version of Rent. She and Rosario Dawson are the only principals to be cast from outside the original stage company of the musical.

"I am very excited," Thoms told Broadway.com. "I saw it on Broadway my senior year at Howard. I saw the whole original cast other than Jesse [L. Martin] and I was just smitten. I was into it. I was in it. I thought: 'I am going to do this play.'"

Thoms went to an open call for the show in 1997 and has since gone in for the role of Joanne numerous times, never before landing the gig. "I was so into Rent when I was auditioning before Julliard, I think I would have done Rent instead of going to Julliard, which would have been dumb," Thoms laughed. "But I was so into it. [The casting office] kept saying I'd get to do it someday and now I will. I'll definitely take doing the movie."

Thoms appeared on Broadway in Drowning Crow. Her off-Broadway credits include The Exonerated, Up Against the Wind and The Antigone Project, which just ended its run at Women's Project on November 7. Thoms was a series regular on As If and last season's acclaimed Wonderfalls, which had only a short run on Fox-TV but will be released on DVD this winter.

Rent, directed by Chris Columbus, is scheduled to begin shooting in San Francisco in early spring 2005. In addition to Dawson and Thoms, original stage company members Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp are expected to star.