Whoopi Goldberg is set to co-star in a new feature movie titled Till about Emmett Till and his mother’s fight for justice.
The Sister Act actress will play Till’s grandmother, Alma Carthan, in the film.
“We have waited a very long time to bring this historically necessary important film to people,” Goldberg said in a statement to Variety. “And as we watch the repression of American history when it comes to people of color, it makes it even that more important.”
The actress will also serve as a producer on the film, along with MGM’s Orion Pictures and producers Keith Beauchamp, Barbara Broccoli, Thomas K. Levine, Michael JP Reilly and Frederick Zollo.
Related Story: ABC Orders Limited Series on Emmett Till’s Mother and Her Search for Justice
After acting in over 150 films, The View moderator is one of the few artists alive to be an EGOT winner—after winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. She took home a best supporting actress Oscar for Ghost (1990).
Goldberg will act in the new film alongside Watchmen star Danielle Deadwyler as Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley, who made the decision to hold an open casket funeral and publish photos of the funeral in Jet magazine. Her decision helped spark the civil rights movement, according to historians.
Filming on Till is expected to start this fall in Atlanta. Chinonye Chukwu will direct and also wrote the screenplay for the drama.
Till, a Chicago native, was 14 years old when he was brutally beaten and lynched by a mob of white men who claimed he had flirted with a white woman while visiting his relatives in Mississippi.
As previously reported, ABC is developing its own limited series later this year on the Till family, titled Women of the Movement, starring Cedric Joe as Emmett Till.
