Deadline reports that Cicely Tyson will reunite with stage director Michael Wilson, who directed her in the recent Broadway revival of The Trip To Bountiful for which she won a Tony Award as Best Actress, in a new feature film inspired by the TV mini-series ROOTS.
According to the site, the film will be set in a small Southern town circa 1977, and will also feature PICNIC's Maggie Grace and GODSPELL and Orange Is The New Black star Uzo Aduba as Pearl, as two women who work in a local beauty parlor. According to the description, the women "see the town's balance turned upside down when the slavery miniseries Roots hits the airwaves and are inspired to integrate their community, only to see pent-up racial tensions erupt in the process."
Adam Brody will also join the cast a Bud, "an engineer who comes to town to fix a local bridge. Downton Abbey's
Elizabeth McGovern also stars. Filming is now underway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Tyson starred as Kunta Kinte's mother in the original Roots miniseries. In the upcoming project she will portray Hattie, Pearl's grandmother. Wilson will helm from a script by
Susan Batten.
One of the most celebrated actresses of the last 50 years,
Cicely Tyson became both the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and the only actress to receive an unprecedented two Emmy Awards for the same role as Jane in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1972 feature film Sounder.
Ms. Tyson's first professional stage performance, in the highly acclaimed, long running stage production of
Jean Genet's The Blacks, along with her performance as Mavis in Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, earned her the coveted off-Broadway Vernon Rice Award. Her last stage appearance was in the Broadway revival of The Corn is Green in 1983. Other Broadway credits include Trumpets of the Lord (1969), A Hand Is On The Gate (1966), Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright (1963), The Cool World (1960), and Jolly's Progress (1959), in which she understudied
Eartha Kitt. She received an additional Emmy Award for "The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" and was also nominated for her performances in "Roots," "King" (portraying
Coretta Scott King), "Sweet Justice," "The Marva Collins Story," "A Lesson Before Dying," and "Relative Stranger." Other television credits include "The Road to Galveston." Her many film credits include The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Fried Green Tomatoes, Because of Winn-Dixie, Hoodlum, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea's Family Reunion, The Help, which garnered five awards and, most recently,
Alex Cross.
Ms. Tyson is among the elite number of entertainers honored with a star on the world famous Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. In 2010 Ms. Tyson became the 95th recipient of the NAACP's highest honor, the prestigious Spingarn Medal, in addition to being the recipient of a record number of NAACP Image Awards. The Cicely L. Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts in East Orange NJ was opened in 2009 where she generously shares her time and talent.
Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos
