'Dexter's' Jennifer Carpenter to Play BFF's with January Jones

Hot on the heels of Sunday's killer season finale of Dexter, Jennifer Carpenter has found something to do during the Showtime drama's hiatus: playing January Jones' best friend in the indie thriller Hungry Rabbit Jumps.

According to Variety, the film, about a teacher (Nicolas Cage) who joins an underground vigilante organization after his wife (Jones) is the victim of a brutal crime, began shooting this month.

Rabbit is being directed by Roger Donaldson, whose credits include the 1988 Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue starrer Cocktail.

The casting marks a return to the thriller genre for Carpenter, who also starred in last year's Quarantine, as well as 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

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Carpenter is on a hot streak this year: She began the year by announcing in January that she married her on-screen brother, Michael C. Hall. During the recently concluded fourth season of Dexter, her character, Detective Debra Morgan, has become one of Miami Metro's strongest, and was responsible for bringing the Trinity Killer - the serial killer to end all serial killers played by John Lithgow - to the forefront of the department's investigations. In addition, Carpenter began tracking her family history, uncovering who Dexter's real mother - and brother - are.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Showtime drama set a ratings record Sunday with its Season 4 finale, revealing the end of the Trinity Killer story line. More than 2.6 million viewers tuned in, making the shocking episode the most-watched original series episode ever on Showtime, and the most-watched telecast since 1999's Mike Tyson fight. The Season 4 finale was up 54 percent compared with the Season 3 capper.

Carpenter will keep things in the police family next with The Factory, the story of an obsessed cop who, with his partner, tracks a serial killer on the streets of Buffalo, N.Y., starring John Cusack and V's Sonya Walger, due out in January 2011.

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