Deadline has learnedJanelle Monáe will play Josephine Baker in the upcoming TV series De La Resistance.
The series, which will be based on the upcoming Damien Lewis book Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy, is said to focus on Baker’s accomplishments as an entertainer, which include being the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture in the 1927 silent film Siren Of The Tropics. The year prior, her popularity catapulted when she performed a dance known as the danse sauvage in nothing but pearl necklaces and a short skirt of bananas during the musical La Revue Nègre.
It will also reportedly explore her role as a spy for the French Intelligence during World War II. Baker managed to gather intel on the Axis powers through her reputation as an entertainer. She later contributed as a civil rights activist in the United States.
The series is being produced by Monáe’s production house Wondaland and A24.
This will not be Monáe’s first time portraying a historical figure. The multi-hyphenate starred as NASA’s first Black female engineer Mary Jackson in the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Monáe most recently published a book titled The Memory Librarian, which served as a collection of stories from their 2018 album Dirty Computer.
The Memory Librarianappeared on the New York Times best sellers list last week. Monáe will also appear in Rian Johnson’s long-awaited follow-up to Knives Out, which is slated to be released on Netflix later this year.
De La Resistance is reportedly involved in a bidding war between multiple streaming services.
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