Willem Dafoe joins Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara in Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley

Oscar-nominated actor Willem Dafoe is the latest addition to the already star-studded cast of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley.

The film, based on the 1946 noir novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, will be directed by del Toro from a script he co-wrote with Kim Morgan.

Willem Dafoe. Image from Twitter

The story follows Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious young con-man who teams up with a female psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who is even more corrupt than he is.

At first, they enjoy success fleecing people with their mentalist act, but then she turns the tables on him, out-manipulating the manipulator.

Dafoe, 64, will play the head barker at a travelling carnival who gives Bradley Cooper's Carlisle a job, ushering him into a world of show biz and grifting.

The cast also includes Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, and David Strathairn.

Del Toro will also produce the project with J Miles Davis.

Production is expected to begin in early 2020 in Toronto.

Gresham's novel was previously adapted into a 1947 movie, directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power and Coleen Gray in the lead.

Dafoe most recently featured in David Eggers' The Lighthouse, alongside Robert Pattinson. He will next star in Edward Norton's directorial Motherless Brooklyn and Dee Rees political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted.