A new film called Harriet about heroic abolitionist Harriet Tubman is about to start shooting, with Bad Times At The El Royale breakout Cynthia Erivo playing the title character. And the cast has just grown by one, with Hidden Figures' Janelle Monáe aboard.
Kasi Lemmons is directing a screenplay she co-wrote with Gregory Allen Howard, which will track how Tubman was born into slavery, escaped in 1849, and made more than a dozen missions to rescue about 70 slaves through the Underground Railroad. She served as a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War and campaigned for women’s suffrage.
Monáe joins a cast that already also includes Leslie Odom Jr., Joe Alwyn, Jennifer Nettles, Clarke Peters, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Zackary Momoh, Deborah Ayorinde and Vondie Curtis-Hall, wit Lemmons ready to start filming this month in Virginia.
And even as she works on that film, Monae will step into a recording booth to add her voice to the UglyDolls movie, which will adapt the toy line into an animated family adventure. Up next for Monáe is Robert Zemeckis' Welcome To Marwen, due out in the UK on 1 January.
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