The LA Time Hero Complex blog is reporting that on Thursday it is expected that Warner Brothers will be announcing that Geoffrey Rush will be joining the cast of the Green Lantern movie. He will be playing Tomar-Re, a member of the Green Lantern Corps. In the comics Tomar-Re is one of the first members of the Corps that speaks to Hal Jordan and the two end up becoming good friends.

Taken from the Hero Complex Blog:

Geoffrey Rush is back in the mode of demanding teacher — but instead of a king’s speech therapist, the Aussie actor will be Tomar-Re, a bird-beaked alien who teaches Ryan Reynolds’ character how to use his new cosmic powers in “Green Lantern.”

Warner Bros. is expected to officially announce Thursday that the 59-year-old Oscar winner is giving voice to the CG-created member of the Green Lantern Corps, the intergalactic peace-keeping force that gets its first earthling member in Hal Jordan (Reynolds). Rush’s character — introduced in the pages of DC Comics in 1961 — is a scientist on his home planet and almost spiritual in his tutelage of Jordan even if his reptilian-chicken visage might suggest someone more, um, peckish.

Rush — one of the just 25 actors who have won an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy – is coming off an Academy Award nomination for “The King’s Speech” and this summer he returns – for a fourth time — to the buccaneer role of Barbossa in the latest installment of Disney’s massive “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise.

“Green Lantern,” directed by Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale“), arrives in theaters June 17 with costars Blake Lively, Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard. The film represents a pivotal moment for Warner Bros. as the first release under a new initiative to better exploit the DC universe and with the studio’s plan to push forward with a Justice League film that would presumably include Reynolds in the Green Lantern role.