Awards season regular Cate Blanchett is circling a typically intriguing role in Nightmare Alley, the next project from The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro.

Bradley Cooper is already attached to star in del Toro's movie adaptation of Nightmare Alley, a 1946 noir novel by William Lindsay Gresham. The story follows an ambitious con-man who teams up with a corrupt female psychiatrist to carry out a successful ongoing scam, only to have her outwit and manipulate him as well.

Blanchett is currently "in talks" to join the project, so it's still early days, but the role definitely sounds like has potential to become "peak Cate" alongside the likes of Carol, Blue Jasmine, and Elizabeth.

Nightmare Alley was previously adapted into a 1947 movie starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, but Variety reports that del Toro's take will remain more faithful to the source material.

Del Toro is aiming to shoot the movie, his first as director since his Oscar-winning romantic fantasy The Shape of Water, in early 2020. In the meantime, Blanchett will return to theaters in Where'd You Go, Bernadette, a comedy-drama from Boyhood director Richard Linklater which opens August 16.

She's currently shooting Mrs. America, a miniseries about the feminist-led movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the '70s. She's playing Phyllis Schlafly, a staunchly conservative constitutional lawyer who was a key force in the campaign to block ratification.

Would you like to see Cate Blanchett star opposite Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley?