According to Variety, red hot Indian actress Aishwarya Rai has signed on to co-star in one of her first American films. The former Miss World will co-star with Dylan McDermott in the romantic comedy The Mistress of Spices.

The film is an adaptation of Chitra Divakaruni's novel about an Indian woman in San Francisco who sells popular spices that are believed to have curing powers. But when she falls in love with an American (McDermott) those powers disappear. Paul Mayeda Berges, who wrote the script for this film and another Rai film Bride and Pejudice, will make his directorial debut. Spices will be produced by Bend it Like Beckham's director Gurinder Chadha who had Berges as her Second Unit Director on that film.