Gretchen Mol to join Boardwalk Empire

Gretchen Mol, who was last seen in last season's short-lived American television version of Life on Mars and in the feature An American Affair, will be going to HBO for the series Boardwalk Empire. She's scheduled to have a recurring role as a showgirl. The series is being produced by Martin Scorsese.

Gretchen Mol was on Life on Mars with Michael Imperioli, who was also on The Sopranos on HBO and was in Scorsese's Goodfellas. Boardwalk Empire star Steve Buscemi also appeared on The Sopranos. In short, all these people know each other and it's definitely a case of cast inbreeding. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Seriously, Gretchen Mol is a terrific actress and was fantastic in The Notorious Bettie Page. Given the talent already behind Boardwalk Empire, it was likely to be a fantastic series. Now its volume just went up to 11.