Exclusive: First Pic Of Tessa Thompson, Common From Ava DuVernay’s MLK Biopic ‘Selma’Posted by Wilson Morales
October 24, 2014
Blackfilm.com has been provided with two images, a look at Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash and Common as James Bevel as well as a pic illustrating the course of the film, from Paramount’s upcoming MLK film ‘Selma,’ which will have a limited release in the U.S. on Christmas day (Dec. 25) and will open wide on January 9, 2015.
Directed by Ava DuVernay (“MIDDLE OF NOWHERE”), “SELMA” is the story of a movement. The film chronicles the tumultuous three-month period in 1965, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition. The epic march from Selma to Montgomery culminated in President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement. Director Ava DuVernay’s SELMA tells the real story of how the revered leader and visionary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his brothers and sisters in the movement prompted change that forever altered history.
The film stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Tom Wilkinson as Lyndon Baines Johnson, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, Andre Holland as Andrew Young, Omar J. Dorsey as James Orange, Alessandro Nivola as John Doar, Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover, Giovanni Ribisi as Lee White, Common as James Bevel, Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash, Colman Domingo as Ralph Abernathy, Stephen Root as Al Lingo, Jeremy Strong as James Reeb, with Tim Roth as George Wallace, and Oprah Winfrey as Annie Lee Cooper.
Nash was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960. She who also played a key role in bringing Martin Luther King Jr. to Montgomery, AL, in support of the Freedom Riders. She was sentenced to two years in prison for teaching nonviolent tactics to children in Jackson, MS. She was later released on appeal. Nash played a major role in the Birmingham de-segregation campaign of 1963 and the Selma Voting Rights Campaign of 1965.
According to Wikipedia, Bevel 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.”
Nash and Bevel were married to each other for seven years and had two children.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures and Pathé, the film is being produced by Oprah Winfrey, Plan B, the producers of the Academy Award®-winning “TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE,” and Cloud Eight Films’ Academy Award®-winning Christian Colson (“127 HOURS,” “SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE”).
