Casting Net: Carrie Brownstein Joins Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson as '50s-Era Lesbians in Carol

The anticipation for Todd Haynes's adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, titled Carol, couldn't get any higher. But it certainly just got gayer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was announced today that Carrie Brownstein, riot grrrl and Portlandia co-creator and star, joined the cast that already includes Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, and Sarah Paulson.

Blanchett will play the role of the socialite Carol (the original name of the book that Highsmith wrote under the pseudonym Claire Morgan), who meets and falls for a younger woman, a department store clerk and artist, Therese (Mara). Brownstein will play Genevieve Cantrell, a woman who has an encounter with Therese as well.

Although Brownstein doesn't label herself a lesbian or bisexual, she's certainly a queer icon to many and is up for new experiences. As she told us earlier this year: “My whole life has been indicators — here are the expectations of what a childhood looks like, then that sort of gets upended, taken out from underneath you. I’m not interested in being normal. I don’t know what that is.”