TORONTO–It wasn't that long ago that film producers considered TV actors over ­exposed for movie roles. Why would audiences want to pay to see someone on the big screen when they could see them for free in reruns?

Writer-director Robin Swicord had a lot of roles to fill with a small budget and managed to convince the producers of her film, The Jane Austen Book Club, that key roles should be given to people who had a following from television shows. The list included Picket Fences' Kathy Baker; L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and The West Wing alum Jimmy Smits; and former NYPD Blue and Judging Amy star Amy Brenneman. She also cast Lost's Maggie Grace to play Smits and Brenneman's daughter.

In the film, which opens October 5 in Vancouver after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Brenneman, Baker, and Grace play three of the six members of a book club who escape the turmoil of their modern lives with the novels of Jane Austen. Smits plays Daniel, who has left his wife, Sylvia (Brenneman), for another woman after 20 years of marriage. The film also stars Maria Bello, Hugh Dancy, and Emily Blunt.

In a Toronto hotel room, Brenneman says she thinks that the motion-picture success of TV stars like George Clooney, Will Smith, and Jamie Foxx has changed things for the better. She says, however, that some filmmakers still think that movie audiences may have trouble embracing characters played by familiar people.

"I was very fortunate because I got my first movie break from Michael Mann, who had come from [TV's] Miami Vice. He cast me in Heat because he was a fan of NYPD Blue. And I think that there are enough people making the transition [to film] that it is getting a little better. At the same time, I was talking to a producer friend of mine who was casting for a project and he said, 'There is this couple, and I created the female character based on you, and her name is Amy.' I said, 'That's cool; I am totally flattered. Can I play her?' He said, 'No, of course not; you're too famous.' I said, 'I am too famous to play me. That is messed up.'"

Brenneman says she could have become famous for other things had she come to Hollywood earlier. She says that when she reads about women who are famous for their off-screen lives, she feels empathy: "I am known for my work, which is awesome, and that is because I did all my running-around in my 20s. I was dating pot-smoking grad students, and they were all anonymous people. If I had been doing that in Hollywood, it would have been with people like George Clooney and Woody Harrelson.”¦But it was okay, because my messing-around days were before I got to Hollywood. So I was lucky."