Lupita Nyong’o is set to reteam with Brad Pitt‘s Plan B production company on the drama Americanah.
Plan B, which produced 12 Years a Slave, has acquired big-screen rights to the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie-penned novel and will produce alongside D2 Prods. and Potboiler Prods. (The Last King of Scotland, Generation Kill). Nyong’o will produce and star.
Americanah is the epic love story of young Nigerians, a romance that spans continents, visas, phone cards and breakups, while exploring the cruelties and the humor of both the modern immigrant experience and the difficulty of finding your way home. The novel was the winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was selected as one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, the BBC and Newsday.
Adichie is the MacArthur Fellowship-winning author of the novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, the film adaptation of which recently premiered in the United Kingdom and Nigeria.
“It is such an honor to have the opportunity to bring Ms. Adichie’s brilliant book to the screen,” Nyong’o said. “Page after page, I was struck by Ifemelu and Obinze’s stories, whose experiences as African immigrants are so specific and also so imminently relatable. It is a thrilling challenge to tell a truly international story so full of love, humor and heart.”
Nyong’o made her feature debut in Steve McQueen‘s Academy Award winner 12 Years a Slave. For her portrayal as Patsey, she received the best supporting actress Oscar. This summer, she begins production on the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars: Episode VII. Next, she will lend her voice to JonFavreau‘s The Jungle Book.
Nyong’o also is a filmmaker, having served as the creator, director, editor and producer of the documentary In My Genes, about the treatment of Kenya’s albino population.
She is repped by CAA, D2 Management and Del Shaw.
Source: THR