Connie Nielsen has boarded Susanne Bier's highly anticipated Brothers, which starts shooting on Monday Nov 10.

The 38-year-old Danish actress, who has recently enjoyed a successful Hollywood career, had her breakthrough in Gladiator, and has appeared in One Hour Photo and The Hunted.

Nielsen will play alongside Danish actors Ulrich Thomsen (Festen, Inheritance) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Open Hearts, The Green Butchers).

Veterans Bent Mejding and Solbjoerg Hoejfeldt will be playing the parents of the two brothers; one a UN soldier (Thomsen), the other straight out of prison (Kaas).

The drama, which the director co-wrote with her Open Hearts collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen, tells the story of what happens when the soldier has an accident in Afghanistan, and the black sheep is left behind with his brother's wife (Nielsen) and two kids.

"I think that it will be exciting to see Connie in this part," said Bier. "Her character is torn between the choices she made when she was young, and the possibilities presented to her in her adult life. Connie is extremely sexy and at the same time has a kind of artlessness about her. She will fit perfectly between Ulrich and Nikolaj, and can bring the right maturity to the part."

"There were things we started in Open Hearts, but didn't quite finish," Bier previously told ScreenDaily.com "So you could say that this film theme wise is a continuation. We are very interested in the conditions of love in our modern lives. How to handle it and the ways it seems so very easy, but really isn't."

The $3.4m (DKR22m) film is produced by Peter Aalbaek Jensen and Sisse Graum Olsen for Zentropa and is a Danish-Swedish-Norwegian-UK co-production.

It shoots from Nov 10 until Jan 12 in Denmark and Spain. Trust Film Sales handle international sales.