HALIFAX -- Nova Scotia-raised actor Laura Regan's career will enjoy a boost when she stars as U.S. army Pte. Jessica Lynch in an NBC-TV movie, a beaming family member says. Saving Jessica Lynch will tell the tale of the 20-year-old supply clerk from Palestine, W.Va., whose capture by Iraqi troops and subsequent dramatic rescue by U.S. forces dominated headlines last spring.

Regan, daughter of former Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan, grew up in Bedford, N.S., and earned a degree in English and cultural studies from McGill University in Montreal.

She is currently in Los Angeles, where she is shooting six episodes of the hit CBS series, Judging Amy, according to her sister.

Nancy Regan, a former television host in Halifax, called the Lynch role a "very high-profile role" for her younger sister.

"Our family is really excited about this as an opportunity for Laura," she said. "I think it really gives her career a good boost and we know she will shine."

Lynch, a member of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, became an instant celebrity after reports of her heroism when her convoy was ambushed March 23.

On April 1, the prisoner of war was rescued from a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

Since then, accounts of the story have kept changing, with Lynch -- who returned home last month -- said to have been unconscious at the time of the capture and able to remember very little about the ordeal.

A BBC documentary in May even alleged the Pentagon's version of events was propaganda, with Lynch suffering no gunshot or knife wounds.

It claimed she had been injured in a vehicle crash and was being treated well by Iraqi doctors when American troops arrived. It also claimed the dramatic rescue was staged and that troops met no resistance.

NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker said during a media tour earlier this summer that the film would be a compelling action-adventure story told largely from the perspective of Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who alerted U.S. military officials to Lynch's whereabouts and has since moved with his family to the U.S.

Production is slated to begin this month so the movie, the screenplay written by John Fasano, will be ready in time for November sweeps, according to the Hollywood Reporter, a trade publication. It reported the script has been rewritten in places as the story has changed.

Named one of Paper magazine's most beautiful people this spring, Regan paid her way through university by modelling, moving to New York about five years ago to further her career and begin acting studies.