With a series of acclaimed films to his name, Vidhu Vinod Chopra is ready to mark his directorial debut in Hollywood with his ambitious project Broken Horses and his hunt for the lead actor is finally over.

The filmmaker has signed on this year's Golden Globe Best Actor winner and Academy Award nominee Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) for this film.

Chopra also revealed that he had seen a special screening of Rourke's The Wrestler before the awards fever began. "I was bowled over by his performance. Both of us had an instant connect when we met in Los Angeles.

He was my first choice and was finalized even before he won the Golden Globe; it's great to have him on board for one of the key roles in the film. Mickey deserves all the acclaim he is getting and I hope he wins the Oscar as well," said the maverick director.

Broken Horses, belonging to the gangster genre with a screenplay based on an original story by Chopra himself, is the work of award-winning writer Abhijat Joshi (Lage Raho Munnabhai, Eklavya ) and script consultant Jason Richman (Bangkok Dangerous, Swing Vote). Mark Johnson (Chronicles of Narnia, The Notebook and Rain Man) is the executive producer of the film, while Chris Buchinsky (Hancock, Spiderman 2) is the story- board artist. The film is expected to be shot across New Mexico, New York and Albuquerque.