PRECIOUS director Lee Daniels has found his next Mariah Carey and Mo’Nique for his upcoming film, SELMA.
Okay not quite. Actually Liam Neeson and Cedric the Entertainer are locked for two roles. Neeson will be playing former President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Cedric is playing American civil rights movement leader and Martin Luther King Jr. associate Ralph Abernathy.
The majority of the other roles have been cast: Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo), Sheriff Jim Clark (Hugh Jackman), and Andrew Young (Lenny Kravitz). A role that hasn’t been filled is the one for George Wallace, the 45th Governor of Alabama who gave a legendary speech at the gubernatorial inauguration. There was talk that Robert De Niro would take the part. However, the only thing Daniels offered up on the subject was that fact that, “Wallace is not [cast], but [an offer is] out. We’re waiting for a deal to close.”
The story is set, “against the backdrop of the civil rights disputes that raged during the 1960s. It is specifically focused on one moment in time in the middle of the decade. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ostensibly made segregation illegal, local governments in less forward-thinking parts of the country still built barriers designed to defeat black citizens who wished to exercise their constitutional rights.”
Is Neeson a good fit for LBJ? Does the mention of Cedric the Entertainer make you disinterested? Or did you even care to begin with?
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