THE WRAP – “Big Little Lies” star Shailene Woodley has joined the cast of “After Exile,” an indie crime drama starring Robert De Niro and Shia LaBeouf, an individual with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.

“After Exile” will be directed by Joshua Michael Stern from a script by Anthony Thorne and Michael Tovo, who wrote the film’s story based on true events from his life.

Woodley will play a character who grew up with LaBeouf’s and whose fractured relationship with him leads him to him turning to drugs and falling into depression.

LaBeouf is playing an ex-convict just released from prison after killing an innocent man following a violent robbery. He tries to re-enter society while working with his father, played by De Niro, to prevent his younger brother from falling into a similar life of drugs and crime. De Niro’s character is also an ex-con who years earlier lost his wife and still struggles with alcoholism and guilt, even as he hopes to prevent his sons from following his same path.

Thorne is also producing “After Exile” alongside Steve Snyder of Pacific Shore Films, which is financing the film. Les Cohen is executive producing, and production is expected to begin this October in Philadelphia.

On the film end, Woodley last starred in the survival story “Adrift” from director Baltasar Kormákur, and she’ll next be seen in Drake Doremus’s love story “Endings, Beginnings,” which will make its premiere at Toronto next month. Woodley is represented by Hyperion, Management 360, and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson.

News of Woodley’s casting was first reported by Deadline.