Cee Lo Green to join Keira Knightley in new film

Cee Lo Green is to join the cast of the music-themed romantic drama Can a Song Save Your Life?, which stars Keira Knightley as a down-on-her-luck singer trying to make her way in New York City and Mark Ruffalo as the producer who discovers her.

The Grammy award-winning singer will play Troublegum, a successful hip-hop star who used to work with Ruffalo and lends his backing band to support the new project. The film is being written and directed by John Carney, the Irish film-maker behind the Oscar-winning 2006 musical drama Once, and also stars Catherine Keener and Hailee Steinfeld.

Can a Song Save Your Life? sees Knightley's character Gretta arrive in New York with her boyfriend (played by Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine) with the aim of pursuing a musical career. She is left crestfallen when her beau embarks on what looks likely to be a successful solo career without her. Green is also set to feature in the upcoming musical drama Sparkle, starring the late Whitney Houston, and will voice Murray the Mummy in the forthcoming animated romp Hotel Transylvania.