Oliver Platt, Bryan Greenberg and Tory Kittles Sign on For HBO's BESSIE

Deadline reports that Oliver Platt, Bryan Greenberg and Tory Kittles will now star alongside leading lady Queen Latifah in HBO's BESSIE, a biopic about legendary blues singer Bessie Smith. PARIAH's Dee Rees will write and direct.

Read the original news here.

The biopic, based upon Chris Albertson's biography, BESSIE, "chronicles how Smith overcame her tempestuous personal life to become one of the most acclaimed performing and recording artists of the 1920s and '30s, earning the nickname Empress of the Blues."

Platt will play famous photographer and writer Carl Van Vechten, while Greenberg will star as record producer and music critic John Hammond, with Kittles as Bessie's brother, Clarence.

Platt's upcoming big screen projects include Kill the Messenger, Merry Friggin' Christmas, Frank and Cindy, Mortdecai and When I Live My Life Over Again. He recently appeared in Cut Bank, Chef, Gods Behaving Badly, Lucky Them, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, and the TV series Fargo. Platt has appeared on Broadway in Guys and Dolls and Shining City, the latter for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 2006.

Greenberg will next be seen in Flock of Dudes, Vice, It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong and A Year and Change. Among his recent credits are A Short History of Decay, The Normals and The Kitchen.

Kittles is set to appear on the big screen in American Heist and Welcome to Purgatory. He last starred on TV in True Detective and the TV movie version of Steel Magnolias.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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