South African director, Liesl Tommy, has been signed to direct the big screen adaptation of Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born A Crime.
Cape Town-born Liesl Tommy will direct the film based on Trevor Noah’s autobiography Born a Crime which will also star Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o.
Trevor Noah published ‘Born A Crime’ in November 2016. The book has since won the James Thurber Prize for American Humor and two NAACP Image Awards.
The book shares stories of Trevor’s life and growing up in South Africa with a black mother and white father during Apartheid. Part of the book also focuses on his mother growing up and living in a mud hut with 14 other people. The movie adaption will have a strong focus on his mother’s strength.
Trevor is producing the project through his Ark Angel Productions alongside Norman Aladjem, Derek Van Pelt and Sanaz Yamin of Mainstay Entertainment along with Nyong’o
Thrilled to share that @LieslTommy is directing the film adaptation of @TrevorNoah's #BornACrime! She's a powerhouse whom I have known & admired for years & directed my broadway debut, Eclipsed. I can't wait & am proud to have a South African woman at the helm of this story. pic.twitter.com/zKluX1u0nU
— Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) March 26, 2018
Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o will star as Noah’s mother. Nyong’o and Tommy have worked together before, on the Broadway production, Eclipsed, for which Tommy received a Tony Award Nomination in 2016. Tommy made history with this nomination as the first woman of colour to ever be nominated for a Tony for Best Director of a Play.
Tommy was born in Cape Town, and grew up there, until she moved to Boston, Massachusetts when she was 15 years old.
She is excited about taking on the project. “When I came home to Cape Town for Christmas in 2016, I gave my father, my brother and uncles Trevor’s book as Christmas presents. I loved it so much, and thought they’d love it too because of the combination of humour and love of family with the Apartheid backdrop. Never in a million years did I imagine I’d one day be directing the film of that book. I’ve spent many years working all over the world, to finally get to come home to South Africa to shoot a project like this is a dream come true.”
It’s reported the biopic will be produced right here in South Africa later this year.
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