You heard right! We have gotten word that Max Irons will indeed be playing one of the lead hunks, Jared Howe. Entertainment Weekly has announced the new acting role for The Host.

According to Melanie, here is how she describes Jared when she flashes his face into Wanderer’s mind just after implantation: “This face was a hard rectangle, the shape of the bones strong under the skin. In color it was a light golden brown. The hair was just a few shades darker than the skin, except where flaxen streaks lightened it, and it covered only the head. The circular irises in the while eyeballs were darker than the hair but, like the hair, flexed with light. There were small lines around the eyes, and her memories told me the lines were from smiling and squinting into sunlight.”

Max Irons is pictured to the left. What do you think? Sounds like Melanie’s description?

But that’s not all! In this article they also inform us that Ian O’Shea has also been cast! Jake Abel will take on the role of Wanderer’s soulmate.

Wanderer described Ian as tall and muscular with dark hair and blue eyes. We have Jake pictured to the right.

Here’s the article directly from Entertainment Weekly online:

Irons, son of Oscar-winning and golden-throated actor Jeremy Irons, was last seen in this year’s Red Riding Hood. For this project, he joins director Andrew Niccol (In Time,Gattaca) and the long-attached Saoirse Ronan, who will play Melanie Stryder, a young woman who shares her body with an alien force known as Wanderer. Since no Meyer novel is complete without some complicated relationship geometry, Jake Abel has been cast in the role of Ian, a man who falls in love with Wanderer despite the fact that she is in the body of Melanie who is in love with Jared. Fans of the book, may I suggest you start preparing your visual aids and PowerPoint explanations now.

The film will begin shooting in February in Louisiana and then New Mexico and will mark one of the first productions for Open Road Films, a young distribution company backed by AMC and Regal theater chains.

Welcome to the cast Jake and Max! The film just reached its level of hotness! Anyone else already drooling over these two? There is definitely some potential in these new cast members. They chose the actors perfectly!

We will be working on the cast pages once we get confirmation from a few other sources, and let all of you know when we have them posted.

Stay tuned for more casting choices to be announced soon!

[Source: EW.com]