Picture Supply: Getty / Taylor Hill / Anthony Barboza
Billy Porter is taking up the function of legendary writer and activist James Baldwin. The 53-year-old actor will star in a forthcoming biopic primarily based on David Leeming’s 1994 guide “James Baldwin: A Biography,” The Hollywood Reporter revealed on April 12. Porter and Dan McCabe will even cowrite the script. Reps for Porter didn’t instantly reply to POPSUGAR’s request for remark.
“As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I discover myself, like James Baldwin mentioned, ‘in a rage on a regular basis.’ I’m as a result of James was,” Porter mentioned in an announcement, per the outlet. “I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend to broaden his legacy for generations to return.”
Porter beforehand paid tribute to Baldwin in a speech on the 2019 Emmys, the place he took house the award for excellent lead actor for his work in “Pose.” “James Baldwin mentioned, ‘[It] took a few years of vomiting up all of the filth that I had been taught about myself and midway believed earlier than I might stroll round this earth like I had the fitting to be right here,'” Porter mentioned within the speech. “I’ve the fitting, you’ve gotten the fitting, all of us have the fitting.”
Baldwin was born in 1925 and died in 1987. His books embrace “Go Inform It on the Mountain,” “Notes of a Native Son,” “The Fireplace Subsequent Time,” and “If Beale Avenue Might Discuss,” which was was 2018’s Oscar-winner of the identical title.
