Obamas Set Netflix Movie About Bayard Rustin Starring Colman Domingo – The Hollywood Reporter

Colman Domingo will star in Rustin, the biopic centered on influential civil and homosexual rights activist Bayard Rustin that Michelle and Barack Obama’s banner, Increased Floor, is producing.

Chris Rock, Glynn Turman and Audra McDonald are additionally starring within the Netflix drama, which is being directed by George C. Wolfe, whose final movie was Ma Rainey’s Black Backside. Wolfe wrote the script with Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning scribe behind Harvey Milk biopic, Milk.

Rustin was a key determine within the early civil rights motion within the mid-Twentieth century, main a number of marches on Washington in addition to organizing Freedom Rides. A practitioner of non-violent resistance, he was arrested and beat a number of occasions for flouting Jim Crow-era legal guidelines. He was additionally arrested for his sexual orientation, which he tried to maintain secret since many believed it might undermine the civil rights work Rustin and others have been making an attempt to perform (and was certainly utilized by racist politicians).

One among Rustin’s excessive factors was appearing to prepare 1963’s March on Washington, the well-known rally the place Martin Luther King Jr. made his “I Have a Dream” speech. Barack Obama awarded the person a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2013.

Enjoying reverse Domingo’s Rustin will likely be Rock, portraying one time NAACP chief Roy Wilkins; Turman, portraying activist and March on Washington co-organizer A. Philip Randolph; and McDonald, who will painting Ella Baker, who has been referred to as essentially the most influential girl within the civil rights motion.

Bruce Cohen, who gained an Oscar for producing American Magnificence and earned nominations for Milk and Silver Linings Playbook, is producing with Increased Floor’s Tonia Davis.

Govt producing are Increased Floor’s Mark R. Wright, Alex G. Scott.

The challenge is the primary narrative function to enter manufacturing from Increased Floor, which had beforehand “introduced” sure movies, together with the Kevin Hart drama Fatherhood and the Michael Keaton drama Value. The corporate has already scored success on the documentary facet with its first launch, American Manufacturing facility, which gained the 2019 Academy Award for finest documentary function.

Rustin is a serious break for Domingo, an actor whose two-decade profession has been full of bit work and supporting roles, even when rising in profile. Lately, he appeared in If Beale Avenue May Discuss and in Wolfe’s Ma Rainey, enjoying the position of bandmember Cutler reverse Chadwick Boseman, incomes Indie Spirit and SAG Award nominations. Most lately, he appeared this summer season’s Candyman. Now, on the age of 52, he will get to headline a status drama with main gamers concerned.

Rock final starred in Noticed reboot Spiral and subsequent seems in David O. Russell’s newest function challenge, at present untitled. Turman labored with Domingo and Wolfe in Ma Rainey.

McDonald is a six-time Tony Award winner who appeared on this summer season’s Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect. She has her personal connection to Barack Obama as the previous president awarded the Nationwide Medal of Arts to her in 2016.

Colman is repped Gersh, Liebman Leisure and Shreck Rose.