Maxi Iglesias has landed a killer role…

The 23-year-old actor, one of Spain’s rising sex symbols, has joined the cast of Gonzalo Bendala’s upcoming thriller Innocent Killers, alongside Aura Garrido and Luis Fernandez.

The suspense drama, produced by Aralan, is scheduled to shoot at the end of the month, with backing from pubcaster Television Espanola, the film institute ICAA and regional broadcaster Canal Sur.

Bendala’s directorial debut is Aralan’s follow-up to Patricia Ferreira’s The Wild Children, which won best film and best screenplay at 2012’s 15th Malaga Spanish Film Festival.

Iglesias and Fernandez have both become pop idols in their native land where their television characters on Los Protegidos propelled them to fame. More recently they have starred together in Sony‘s thriller XP3D.

Garrido is a rising star in Spain, following her film debut in Oriol Paulo’s The Body. Audiences can see her in theaters in Spain now in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Stockholm.

“A suspenser, echoing elements of Hitchcock,” according to Aralan CEO Marta Velasco, “Killers tells of a university student (Iglesias) who receives an job offer to kill his psychology teacher (Miguel Sola).The twist is that the offer comes from the psychology teacher.”

Producers said the story is inspired by a series of strange and unsuccessful attempts on the life of New York’s Michael Malloy, an ex-firefighter and legendary alcoholic in the 1920 in New York.