Blake Lively climbing into the cage for MMA film

Actress Blake Lively is shaping up to portray a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter in an action film directed by Nick Cassavetes.

The former Gossip Girl star will kick butt as a struggling single mom who is forced to return to her fighting roots in order to keep her son.

Cassavetes, famed for directing romantic drama The Notebook, will take charge of the project, titled Bruised, which was written by Michelle Rosenfarb.

The movie will be presented to distributors at the Cannes Film Festival in France later this month (May17), with production slated to begin in September (17), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bruised is the first film Blake has signed up for since welcoming her second child with husband Ryan Reynolds. The couple welcomed a little girl reportedly named Ines last September (16) - a little sister for the pair's two-year-old daughter James.

The new project will be Blake's toughest yet as the actress is more well known for her dramas, like The Age of Adaline, Cafe Society, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants franchise.

She has previously only dabbled in a few action movies, such as Savages, The Shallows, and 2011 superhero film flop Green Lantern, which was a big personal win for the actress - she met her now-husband, Reynolds, while making the movie.