Gillian Anderson ("The X-Files") has joined the cast of the recently announced Idi Amin flick "The Last King of Scotland". She will play Sarah Zach, an Israeli doctor - and perhaps a spy - who has a brief affair with Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy).

Based on Giles Foden's award-winning novel of the same name and adapted by Peter Morgan & Jeremy Brock, the film will be helmed by Oscar-winning documentary director Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, Touching the Void).

In an incredible twist of fate, a Scottish doctor (McAvoy) on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the world's most barbaric figures: Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). Impressed by Dr. Garrigan's brazen attitude in a moment of crisis, the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician and closest confidante.

Though Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position, he soon awakens to Amin's savagery - and his own complicity in it. Horror and betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs and get out of Uganda alive.

The film is being financed by Film Four and DNA and will be distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Principal photography will begin in Uganda and the UK in June 2005. Thanks to 'James'