Carano is a Hollywood Knockout

While Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is joining The A-Team, Strikeforce knockout Gina Carano is taking the biggest dip in Hollywood’s waters yet by an MMA fighter.

Carano will star in the spy thriller Knockout, to be directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen). According to movie business magazine Variety, Carano will play a “girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes. The film is a closer cousin to La Femme Nikita and Kill Bill than Million Dollar Baby, in that it doesn’t take place in the fight ring. Rather, Soderbergh considers the film as a flat out action film in the James Bond mold, and will shoot in locations around the world that include Ireland, Turkey and the U.S.

Carano is no stranger to the camera. She appeared in the documentary Ring Girls and the reality series Fight Girls, she was Crush on American Gladiators and had a role in the upcoming Michael Jai White (Spawn) action film Blood and Bone.

Variety says Knockout will start filming in January, so unless Carano plans on squeezing in another fight before the end of the year, don’t expect to see her back in the cage until the middle of 2010 at the earliest.

And for those who think it’s strange to cast a non-actor is a big Hollywood action movie – again, this is no B-grade action movie a la Bloodsport – Soderbergh’s last movie, The Girlfriend Experience, starred Sasha Grey, an actual adult actress (as in porn star).