Emmy® Winner and Oscar® Nominee, Oprah Winfrey, Teams with HBO for a New Film Based on the Life of Henrietta Lacks
HBO Films announced the Emmy® winner and Oscar® nominee will star in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks film based on Rebecca Skloot’s critically acclaimed, bestselling nonfiction book of the same name. Filming is scheduled to begin this summer with Oprah Winfrey not only starring as Henrietta Lacks, she will also serve as an executive producer alongside; Academy Award®, Emmy® and Golden Globe winner Alan Ball (“American Beauty”; HBO’s “True Blood” and “Six Feet Under”; CINEMAX’s “Banshee”), Peter Macdissi (CINEMAX’s “Banshee”), Carla Gardini (“The Hundred-Foot Journey”), Lydia Dean Pilcher (HBO’s “You Don’t Know Jack”) and Rebecca Skloot serving as co-executive producer. The novel took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a hit on the New York Times bestseller list upon publication, and remained there for more than four years. Henrietta Lacks’ sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman as well as her granddaughter Jeri Lacks will serve as consultants for the film.
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks (Winfrey), the film chronicles her search to learn about the mother she never knew and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks’ cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It’s a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest of people.
The film is a Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, Harpo Films and Cine Mosaic production. What are your thoughts on Oprah Winfrey casting in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? Leave comments below.
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