Common, Corey Reynolds Join Ava DuVernay’s MLK Biopic ‘Selma’Posted by Wilson Morales
May 12, 2014
The latest additions to Ava DuVernay’s MLK biopic ‘Selma’ include rapper-actor Common and The Closer’s Corey Reynolds.
Selma details the attempts of black marchers to walk from Selma to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, in 1965 in order to gain voting rights, only to be beaten back by police. It took the organizers three attempts to make the journey as marchers swelled in numbers each time.
Common is near a deal to play James Bevel, who according to wikipedia, was “a leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who, as the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) initiated, strategized, directed, and developed SCLC’s three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade, the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, and the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement.”
Reynods recently tweeted that he will be playing C. T. Vivian, who, according to wikipedia, was a minister, author, and was a close friend and lieutenant of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. during the American Civil Rights Movement. Vivian rode the first “Freedom Bus” into Jackson, Mississippi, and went on to work alongside Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Diane Nash, and others on SCLC’s Executive Staff in Birmingham, Selma, Chicago, Nashville, the March on Washington; Danville, Virginia, and St. Augustine, Florida. On August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama named Rev. Vivian as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The duo join a cast that includes David Oyelowo, who’s playing Martin Luther King Jr., Carmen Ejogo as his wife Coretta Scott King, Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Short Term 12′s Keith Stanfield as Jimmie Lee Jackson, Lorraine Toussaint as civil rights activist Amelia Boynton (Robinson), eight-time Grammy nominee artist Ledisi as the legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash, and Colman Domingo and Andre Holland playing the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and politician Andrew Young respectively.
Currently playing Elam Ferguson on AMC’s Hell on Wheels, Common was last seen on the big screen in ‘Now You See Me.’ Reynolds appeared in seven seasons of TNT’s The Closer and among his film credits are ‘The Terminal’ and ‘Red Tails.’
Oprah Winfrey and her Harpo production company, Plan B’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, and Christian Colson will produce ‘Selma.’ Paramount will distribute the film.
