Laura Benanti, Penn Badgley Join HERE TODAY

Deadline reports that Tony winner Laura Benanti has joined the cast of Billy Crystal's "Here Today," also starring Tiffany Haddish, actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and Nyambi Nyambi. "Gossip Girl" actor Penn Badgley also joined the cast today.

The film follows veteran comedy writer Charlie Burnz (Crystal), who is slowly but surely losing his grip on reality. He befriends a talented young New York street singer Emma Payge (Haddish). Together, they form an unlikely yet hilarious and touching friendship that kicks the generation gap aside and redefines the meaning of love and trust.

Crystal wrote the screenplay with Alan Zweibel.

"We've assembled a terrific and gifted cast," said Astute Films' President Bernstein. "Billy and Alan Zweibel gave us a wonderful script, and great actors want to work with Billy. We are thrilled!"

Badgley recently starred on "You." He's also known for his roles in films like "John Tucker Must Die" and "Margin Call."

In addition to television work and her critically acclaimed performance as Elsa Schrader in NBC's "The Sound of Music LIVE," Benanti is a highly celebrated stage actress who took Broadway by storm at the age of 18. She received a Drama Desk award, Outer Critics Circle Award and a Tony Award Nomination for her starring role in the Broadway production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown for Lincoln Center where she also starred in the Broadway production of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play.

Benanti earned the 2008 Tony Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, a Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award for her revelatory portrayal of Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy opposite Patti LuPone and directed by Arthur Laurents.

Her other Broadway roles include The Wedding Singer, Nine, starring Antonio Banderas, her Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated performance of Cinderella in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods and her sultry Tony nominated turn in Swing!

Read the original story on Deadline.