*Following his acclaimed performance as Christopher Darden in FX’s hit miniseries “The People v. OJ Simpson,” Sterling K. Brown has signed on to co-star alongside Chadwick Boseman and Josh Gad in Reginald Hudlin’s courtroom drama “Marshall,” the biopic about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Hudlin will direct from a script by attorney Michael Koskoff and his son Jacob Koskoff.
According to the TheWrap, Brown will play Joseph Spell, an itinerant worker newly relocated from Louisiana to Connecticut, where he’s accused of the rape and attempted murder of a wealthy Greenwich socialite. The high-profile 1941 trial brought a young Thurgood Marshall (Boseman), counsel for a struggling NAACP, to Bridgeport, CT, where he teamed with a Jewish insurance lawyer named Sam Friedman (Gad) to defend Spell. The controversial trial helped set the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
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Brown recently wrapped M. Night Shyamalan‘s supernatural thriller “Split” as well as Dan Fogelman‘s untitled NBC pilot, which is awaiting a series pick-up. Additionally, Brown has received praise for his lead role in the play “Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Industry insiders note that his impressive performance in the “OJ Simpson” series will surely be in the Emmy conversation this year.
Sterling reflected on playing the prosecutor during a chat with the Los Angeles Times, saying, “Being a prominent black member of the prosecution at a time when black America was very much on the side of the defense in the O.J. Simpson trial — that was interesting because I heard that a few named actors had passed on the role because of how unpopular he was.”
Super Hero Films is financing “Marshall,” which Paula Wagner is producing under her Chestnut Ridge Productions banner. The film, which boasts the support of Marshall’s family, will start production this month in Buffalo, NY.
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