Daveed Diggs, Wyatt Russell flock to ‘The Good Lord Bird,’ adapted from James McBride novel
Showtime's limited series will adapt the National Book Award-winning James McBride novel.
James McBride’s National Book Award-winning “The Good Lord Bird” is taking flight at Showtime, with “Hamilton” breakout Daveed Diggs and “Lodge 49” actor Wyatt Russell signing on to play major roles in the upcoming miniseries.
Diggs – who originated the roles of Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical “Hamilton” and earned raves for a dramatic turn in last year’s “Blindspotting” – will portray Frederick Douglass, the famed orator and statesman who became an abolitionist leader after escaping from slavery in Maryland.
Russell, meanwhile, is to appear in multiple episodes as US Army Officer Jeb Stuart; the “Lodge 49” actor recently starred in WWII horror-thriller “Overlord.”
“First Reformed” actor Ethan Hawke, who’s executive-producing, had previously been cast in the lead role of abolitionist John Brown. The eight-part series will be told, like McBride’s 2013 novel, as the memoir of an enslaved teenager (played by Joshua Johnson-Lionel) who joins Brown’s cause during the taut, pre-Civil War period known as “Bleeding Kansas,” eventually participating in Brown’s 1859 raid on the US military arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
As in the novel, Diggs’ Douglass is described as one of Brown’s supporters, who nonetheless grows wary of the abolitionist fireband’s questionable leadership tactics and reckless approach. Russell’s Stuart is charged with apprehending Brown, for whom he holds out some sympathy even as his efforts to catch the outlaw take on increasing urgency.
McBride, a Boston Globe staffer in the early 1980s, is the celebrated author behind books like “Miracle at St. Anna,” “The Color of Water” and “Song Yet Sung.” He’s a noted journalist, with bylines at National Geographic and The Washington Post, as well as an acclaimed saxophonist and composer.
Anthony Hemingway (TV’s “The Purge,” “American Crime Story”) is directing; Hawke collaboratively wrote the first episode with showrunner Mark Richard, formerly a writer on AMC’s post-Civil War drama “Hell on Wheels.”
“The Good Lord Bird” is set to premiere on Showtime on Feb. 16 next year.
