Actress in talks to play female lead in Sony's action drama

“The Dark Knight” star Maggie Gyllenhaal is in talks to play the female lead in Sony’s action drama “White House Down.”

Roland Emmerich is directing from a script by James Vanderbilt, who sold his spec to Sony for $3 million back in March, as Variety first reported.

Pic finds the White House under siege by a paramilitary group that holds everyone inside hostage.

Channing Tatum will star as a Secret Service agent who leaps into action to defend the U.S. president, a role for which Jamie Foxx is in talks. Gyllenhaal has been offered the role of a patriotic Secret Service agent on the president’s detail.

Vanderbilt and partners Bradley Fischer and Laeta Kalogridis will produce for Mythology Entertainment, while Emmerich and Harald Kloser will also produce. Reid Carolin, Tatum’s producing partner at their Iron Horse Entertainment banner, will serve as an exec producer.

Gyllenhaal, who earned an Oscar nomination for her perf opposite Jeff Bridges in Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart,” can currently be seen in Tanya Wexler’s period comedy “Hysteria.” Thesp next stars alongside Viola Davis in Walden Media’s education drama “Won’t Back Down,” which 20th Century Fox releases Sept. 28.

Gyllenhaal is repped by WME and the Schiff Co.