Cara Delevingne has landed her first lead role in a film, starring in the adaptation of John Green's bestselling novel Paper Towns.
Delevingne, who is one of Britain's most successful models and is currently the face of Topshop and Burberry, will play the role of Margo Roth Spiegelman in the second film adaptation of a Green novel, after his debut The Fault in Our Stars was made into a box office hit this year.
Delevingne's addition to the cast was confirmed by 20th Century Fox as well as the 37-year-old writer, who took to Twitter to confirm the news on Tuesday saying: "Cara Delevingne's audition blew everyone away (including me!) and she understands Margo profoundly. I am so excited!"
Delevingne was recently praised for her "striking debut performance" in Michael Winterbottom's dramatisation of the Amanda Knox trial, The Face of an Angel, as English student Melanie, and has also reportedly landed parts in the upcoming adaptation of Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever, alongside Judi Dench, and Joe Wright's 2015 dark fantasy Pan, where she will play a mermaid.
The model, 22, also tweeted her excitement at landing her first leading role, writing: "'Thank you so much guys!! I am so excited! Ahhhh! X".
Green's young adult novel tells of two neighbours, Margo and Quentin, who grow close after finding the body of a man who killed himself. When Margo goes missing, Quentin, played by The Fault in our Stars actor Nat Wolff, begins to follows clues in an attempt to track her down.
Due out in 2015, Michael H Weber and Scott Neustadter, who also adapted The Fault in our Stars, will write the screenplay and Jake Schreier, who made his feature film debut with Robot and Frank in 2012, will direct.
Despite her success as a model – she was named Model of the Year in 2012 – Delevingne admitted in a recent Guardian interview that she would find it "blissful" to give up modelling to act full time, and spoke of the stigma she faced following her foray into drama.
"I knew I was going to have to fight really hard to do it, because I had to prove myself," she said. "Most people have that stigma: she's a model, can't act, we don't want you in our movie. People say to me: 'The money's probably not enough, it's not the amount of money you usually get paid.' And I sit there going: 'No, that's not the point, I would pay to do this film because I care about it so much.'"
