Malin Akerman Pessimistic that Linda Lovelace Film 'Inferno' Will Ever Be Made

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A year and a half after it was announced she was taking over the role of former porn star-turned-women's rights advocate Linda Lovelace from Lindsay Lohan, Malin Akerman says the film's future is in doubt.

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"I don't know if that's even going to go," Akerman told The Hollywood Reporter in a sit-down chat in New York, where she is promoting her new dramedy The Giant Mechanical Man. "Last I heard, which was just before Christmas, we were supposed to start shooting in March, and now it's April. It's been one of those doomed films that I absolutely love and totally believe in, I love the script, I think it's such a well-written script about the behind-the-scenes of a battered woman."

The issue, she says, has largely been financing.

"It's a big one to take a chance on because it's really some heavy content. So I don't know what's been going on, I don't know why it hasn't gone yet. I would hope and love for it to go, but now this other movie is coming on that Amanda Seyfried did, and I kind of feel like, 'Shit, we should have been on that, we should have done it,' " she said.

Lovelace is a cultural icon and playing her would require great preparation -- which has proven to be another difficulty for Akerman amid all the uncertainty.

"I started a little bit, I read her book and started going on the internet, trying to find pictures and interviews with her, but honestly, after the first sort of let down of, 'Oh, we're going, now we're not going.' I said, 'Okay, next time they say we're going, I'll wait until the money is in escrow and we're ready to go and then I'll start prepping,' " the actress explained. "I don't want to wrap myself up again, and then it's, again, you know it'd be going into a really dark place so I didn't want to go there a million times and then get the plug pulled."

At least she isn't hurting for work.

Akerman already has a 2012 calendar filled with plane trips, premieres and shoots. The Swedish-Canadian actress has a total of eight films that have been or will be released and a TV pilot with Portia De Rossi in contention for a series order. 

Email: Jordan.Zakarin@THR.com; Twitter: @JordanZakarin