Sanaa Lathan has been tapped to direct an upcoming Paramount Players’ adaptation of Angie Thomas’ New York Times bestseller novel, “On the Come Up.”
“On the Come Up” was written by Angie Thomas, the award-winning author of “The Hate U Give,” which was also turned into a movie flick.
According to the synopsis, “On the come Up” returns with a powerful story about hip hop, freedom of speech – and fighting for your dreams, even as the odds are stacked against you.”
The main character, Bri, is the daughter of a late underground hip-hop legend and is eager to become one of the greatest rappers of all time. After Bri’s first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, she has to deal with the fallout of watching her reputation going down in flames. But when her family is hit with an eviction notice, she vows to make it by any means necessary.
Lathan has been a staple in Black movies for decades. She has starred in several Black classics, including “Love & Basketball,” “Brown Sugar,” and “The Wood.” She was nominated for a Tony award in 2003 for her Broadway performance in “A Raisin in the Sun” in the Best Featured Actress in a Play category. Lathan is currently starring in the Emmy Award-winning HBO series “Succession.”
In 2018, the actress went viral after getting the big chop for a starring role in the Netflix series “Nappily Ever After.”
“It was kind of a perfect time in my life to do it. I have a lot of hair, and it’s thick. I was just so over it. If I got it straightened and then I worked out, it would go right back into the original—the Afro. And I couldn’t do braids for a week; they’d get frizzy,” she told Health.com at the time.
“My girlfriends would even be like, “Why aren’t you doing anything with your hair? You look crazy!” So in terms of me being lazy, it’s just so easy. [It feels like this is time] in terms of women of color coming into this amazing renaissance of owning who they are, and owning all of their beauty in whatever shape, size, color it is. There’s no more cookie-cutter, like, “This is the ideal.”
