Billy Porter Will Play James Baldwin In A New Movie
Billy Porter's casting as James Baldwin, a trailblazer who fought for equality and civil rights, is a match made in heaven.
In what well may be the role of a lifetime, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning actor and singer Billy Porter has been cast to play James Baldwin, the gay African American writer and civil rights activist, in an upcoming biopic.
Not only will Porter star in the film, he is also slated to co-author the movie alongside Dan McCabe.
It’s reportedly going to be based on David Leeming’s 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography.
In a statement published by The Hollywood Reporter, Porter expressed his excitement for the role and his admiration for Baldwin.
“As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I find myself, like James Baldwin said, ‘in a rage all the time.’ I am because James was. I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend to expand his legacy for generations to come,” he said.
Porter has long been a very public and outspoken fan of Baldwin’s work and has quoted him in the past. During his 2019 Emmy-winning acceptance speech, he used the author’s words by saying, “The category is love, y’all. Love. I’m so overjoyed and so overwhelmed to have lived to see this day. James Baldwin said, ‘It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself and halfway believed before I could walk around this earth like I had the right to be here.’ I have the right. You have the right. We all have the right.”
Porter’s Incognegro Productions will co-produce the Baldwin biopic along with Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group Motion Pictures. There is no filming or release timeline yet for the still-untitled film.
Baldwin’s literary work and activism inspired generations, and a number of his best-known and most beloved books, including Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, and The Fire Next Time, have been adapted into or inspired movies, including Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk and Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro.
Porter has been an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community and a trailblazer for diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
His casting as James Baldwin, another trailblazer who fought for equality and civil rights, is a match made in heaven.
Baldwin’s work and life have inspired Porter, and now he will have the opportunity to inspire others through his portrayal of the iconic writer.
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