Paul Greengrass ("United 93," "The Bourne Ultimatum") directs Ryan along with Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon in an as-yet-untitled film based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's non-fiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone."

The Iraq war thriller has begun shooting in Spain for Universal Pictures, according to the trade magazine. The film is tentatively slated for a 2009 release.

Greengrass and Brian Helgeland reworked the book into a fictional thriller set in the Green Zone, a secured area in Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed during the occupation. Ryan will play an investigative journalist sent to the country to look into the claims of weapons of mass destruction. Damon and Kinnear play CIA agents.

For her "Gone Baby Gone" portrayal of a Boston mother, Ryan has already earned Best Supporting Actress awards from The New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, The Boston Society of Film Critics, The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

The Broadway veteran was Tony-nominated for her work in A Streetcar Named Desire and Uncle Vanya. She has also been seen on stage in The Women, The Three Sisters, The Sisters Rosensweig, On the Mountain, Crimes of the Heart, Saved and As Bees in Honey Drown. Ryan also appears in the film "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," on television's "The Wire" and is slated to next star in the Clint Eastwood film "The Changeling."