Johnny Galecki joins Justin Timberlake film

LOS ANGELES  - Johnny Galecki has booked his first major feature role since becoming a star on "The Big Bang Theory."

He is joining the cast of "I'm.Mortal," a sci-fi saga whose cast includes Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Olivia Wilde. Andrew Niccol ("Gattaca") will direct from his own script.

The New Regency project, which starts shooting later this month, is set in the not-too-distant future where the aging gene has been switched off. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest try to negotiate for their immortality.

In a role far removed from the genius physicist he plays in his hit CBS show, Galecki will portray Timberlake's best friend, a screw-up of a father with a drinking problem who wastes all of his family's excess time.

While this isn't the first film role Galecki has booked in his career -- the "Roseanne" veteran had small parts in "Vanilla Sky" and more recently "Hancock" -- it is the first one in a major movie since "Big Bang Theory" bowed in 2007.