Billy Porter lands a major dramatic role playing a beloved gay icon

Billy Porter has been cast to play James Baldwin in a screen biopic of the late queer writer.

The Hollywood Reporter says Porter will also co-write the script alongside Dan McCabe. The script will be based on David Leeming’s 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography.

Porter has long been a fan of Baldwin’s. In a statement, the Pose and Broadway actor and singer said, “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.”

Porter has won Emmy, Grammy and Tony awards. He’s an Oscar shy of EGOT status.

Porter’s Incognegro Productions will co-produce the Baldwin biopic along with Allen Media Group.

It’s not known yet when shooting will commence.

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Who was James Baldwin?

James Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem, New York City. He died of stomach cancer in 1987, aged 63, in France. Baldwin relocated to the country at the age of 24 but returned to the US often for lecture tours and other work. He was also active in US civil rights demonstrations, such as the 1965 march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery.

Baldwin’s work often explored race, sexuality, and spirituality, with a particular emphasis on racial discrimination in the US.

He wrote essays, novels, plays, and poetry. Notable work includes his 1953 debut novel, the semi-autobiographical, Go Tell It On The Mountain, his essay collection, Notes of a Native Son (1955), and 1963’s collection of two essays entitled, The Fire Next Time. Many regard The Fire as an essential book for insight into race relations in the US.

His 1974 novel, If Beale Street Could Talk, was adapted into a movie in 2018 by Barry Jenkins. Giovanni’s Room, published in 1956, was a groundbreaking exploration of same-sex attraction. It was a fictional work focussing on an American living in Paris who has a brief affair with an Italian he meets at a gay bar.

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