‘Short Term 12′ Star Keith Stanfield Added To MLK Biopic ‘Selma’Posted by Wilson Morales
April 15, 2014
Source: TheWrap
Actor Keith Stanfield, who had a breakout in the indie film ‘Short Term 12,’ has joined the cast of Ava DuVernay’s MLK biopic, ‘Selma.’
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.
Already cast in the film are David Oyelowo, who’s playing Martin Luther King Jr., Carmen Ejogo as his wife Coretta Scott King and Tom Wilkinson, who will play President Lyndon B. Johnson.
TheWrap reports that the actor “is set to play Jimmie Lee Jackson, the good-natured son of Viola Jackson and the grandson of Cager Lee. A third-generation member of a family devoted to the Civil Rights Movement, Jimmie Lee is a young veteran of protest marches who attends all of MLK’s speeches in Selma, Ala., and he becomes a rallying point in the fight for equal voting rights.”
Oprah Winfrey and her Harpo production company, Plan B’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, and Christian Colson will produce the film. Paramount will distribute the film.
Stanfield, who also received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for ‘Short Term 12,’ will also be seen later this summer in ‘The Purge: Anarchy.’
Loading…