For the most part, Miley Cyrus – aka "Hannah Montana" – has been an upstanding and outstanding role model for young girls, with only hints of "scandal" here and there. Cyrus attributes her good behavior to her Christian faith, as she discussed in our recent interview.
Now Cyrus really gets to play the teen rebel role in her next film, The Last Song, a coming-of-age-drama based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe). The film, to be released in January 2010 by Touchstone Pictures (Disney's "grown-up" division), begins production this week in Savannah, Ga.
A recent press release from Touchstone describes the story as being "set in a small Southern beach town where an estranged father (Greg Kinnear) gets a chance to spend the summer with his reluctant teenaged daughter (Cyrus), who'd rather be home in New York. He tries to reconnect with her through the only thing they have in common - music - in a story of family, friendship, secrets and salvation, along with first loves and second chances."
Salvation? Hmm. We're intrigued. Another online description states that Cyrus's character remains angry about her parents' divorce three years after the fact, and is especially alienated from her father, "a former concert pianist and teacher [who] is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church."
A local church? Hmm, again. Sparks is a Christian, and so is Cyrus, so it'll be interesting to see what faith elements might be included here. Cyrus impressed critics with her acting chops in the recent Hannah Montana movie, but this will be her first chance to truly stretch herself into more dramatic range.
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