Billy Porter to Play James Baldwin in Biopic

Billy Porter is taking on a major role.

On Wednesday, Allen Media Group Motion Pictures announced that Porter, 53, is set to play celebrated author and civil rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic, according to multiple outlets.

Porter will also cowrite a script with screenwriter Dan McCabe based on the 1994 biography James Baldwin: A Biography, written by author David Leeming.

He gave a statement to the Hollywood Reporter. “As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I find myself, like James Baldwin said, ‘in a rage all the time.” He added, “I am because James was. I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend to expand his legacy for generations to come.”

Baldwin died from stomach cancer in 1987 at age 63, according to The New York Times‘ obituary. The celebrated author is remembered for works such as Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Go Tell it on the Mountain and If Beale Street Could Talk, which Barry Jenkins adapted into the 2018 Oscar-winning movie of the same name.

A 2017 documentary titled I Am Not Your Negro, based on Baldwin’s writings, received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Oscars.

According to Deadline, the film will be based on the 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming, an emeritus professor of English at the University of Connecticut who was a friend of Baldwin’s for 25 years, as well as his assistant.

A gay, African American writer and civil rights activist born in Harlem who wrote critically acclaimed and influential essays, novels, plays and poems, Baldwin’s best-known works include Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk. Lemming’s biography of Baldwin creates an intimate portrait of a complex, troubled, driven and brilliant man, plumbing every aspect of his life, including his gift for compassion and love, the public pressures that overwhelmed his quest for happiness, and his passionate battle for Black identity and racial justice.

Other recent projects demonstrating Baldwin’s enduring cultural relevance include the Academy Award-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro from Raoul Peck, taking the author and his unfinished novel Remember This House as its subjects, and Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of his novel If Beale Street Could Talk, which won one Oscar from three nominations, among numerous other accolades.

Byron Allen, owner of the production company, said in a statement “We at Allen Media Group Motion Pictures are extremely passionate about sharing James Baldwin’s phenomenal story with the world.” 

Porter won a Tony Award in 2013 for his performance in Kinky Boots and received a Grammy Award for the production’s album the same year. In 2019, the actor was the first openly gay Black man to be nominated and subsequently win an Emmy Award, which he won for his performance as Pray Tell in FX’s Pose.

He is one Oscar away from achieving EGOT status, and this role may just land him in that Elite class.