Los Angeles - Lindsay Lohan has landed the lead role in an independent movie about 1970s American porn star Linda Lovelace, one of the film's producers said.

The 24-year-old actress will play Lovelace, who shot to fame with the landmark 1972 porno movie Deep Throat, while Bill Pullman (Independence Day, 1996) will portray Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner in the drama, producer Wali Razaqi told The Los Angeles Times.

The film, called Inferno, will be based on the events of Lovelace's life and will delve into the 'difficult stuff she went through and overcame', Razaqi said.

Razaqi said he and director Matthew Wilder are confident the Mean Girls (2004) star will deliver. 'I would say it's probably one of the most challenging roles any actor could play - and not because of the sexual content, necessarily - but more because she was so battered and beat up emotionally, that I think it's gonna take everything Lindsay has to really be able to pull it off,' he told the Times.

'Not that Lindsay's life is similar in any way - but she's been through a lot of ups and downs. A lot of times you're loved and then you're hated, and I think she can relate to those emotions and feelings.'

He added that an official announcement about the film's casting will be made at the Cannes Film Festival later this month.

Lohan took a role that Anna Faris previously declined and Rose McGowan was linked to in 2008.

The role comes after reports that the ex-Disney child star, known for her hard partying and erratic behaviour, was dropped from the movie The Other Side as producers were reluctant to finance the film with her in a lead role.

Last week, she had to defend as 'art' a photo of herself holding a gun to her mouth, saying the picture she posted on Twitter was from a shoot for a book about the dark side of glamour by celebrity photographer Tyler Shields.

Lovelace, whose real name was Linda Susan Boreman, starred in several adult films before gaining stardom with the runaway hit Deep Throat, one of the first porn movies to reach into mainstream culture. She later denounced her pornography career and became a spokesman for the anti-pornography movement.

In her autobiography Ordeal, she said she gave birth to a son out of wedlock when she was 20, and that her mother put him up for adoption. She died in 2002, aged 53, following a car crash in Denver.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.