'Fifty Shades Darker' Casts Bella Heathcote as Christian Grey's Ex Submissive Leila Williams

Production for the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel, next year's Fifty Shades Darker, is finally moving forward after numerous issues, and the BDSM-themed film has hired its second new cast member after Kim Basinger: The Australian actress, Bella Heathcote, will be joining the film playing Leila Williams, one of Christian Grey's submissive exes.

According to an exclusive by Deadline, 28-year-old Heathcote has been chosen for the role from E.L. James' madly successful erotic trilogy. The news comes just as the actress, who worked under Tim Burton in the 2012 film Dark Shadows, premieres her latest film, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, where she plays Jane Bennet.

Besides the Jane Austen reimagining, Heathcote will be appearing in another film this year: The Neon Demon, where she will be co-starring with the likes of Keanu Reeves, Christina Hendricks and Jena Malone.

In the Fifty Shades Darker novel, Leila, Christian's former lover, starts stalking his new girlfriend, Anastasia, after becoming obsessed with her and having a mental breakdown. She threatens Ana at gunpoint, appearing at her home, and ultimately Christian saves her by bringing his old dominant/submissive relationship with Leila to the picture until she desists.

In all, Leila's appearance in the story is pretty major, as it makes Anastasia doubt whether the billionaire with the BDSM playroom will be able to maintain a vanilla relationship.

Variety reports that producing company giant, Universal, is planning to shoot Fifty Shades Darker and the third part of the trilogy, Fifty Shades Freed, back-to-back, which means fans will be hearing casting news regarding the two other films soon. Filming is set to begin within the next few days.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan will be returning to play Anastasia and Christian respectively, after the success the first film of the saga had in the box office, making $560 million worldwide despite both leads being practically unknown at the time of the film's release.