The actress plays a daughter of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
- December 23, 2016
AceShowbiz -
HBO has released the first photos of Oprah Winfrey, who plays Deborah Lacks in TV movie "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". Oprah's Deborah looks somber and anxious as she apparently searches for some information about her mother, accompanied by Rebecca Skloot (Rose Byrne) in one of the photos obtained by Entertaiment Weekly.
The film, which is adapted from Rebecca Skloot's 2010 book of the same name, chronicles Deborah's search to learn about the mother she never knew. It also follows her story to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks' cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It's a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest of people.
The movie's director George C. Wolfe says, "The book connects the epic with the intimate, and that's the movie's ambition. This woman's cells helped heal the planet, yet her children were suffering. They didn't know their mother's story, even though they were living in the shadows of Johns Hopkins. I found that dichotomy incredibly moving."
"I kept reducing it further and further down," Wolfe says about the book's science which could be daunting. But he admits that what intrigued him the most was how Lacks' daughter processed it. "I'm interested in how people create their own mythologies so they can continue to live," he says.
The TV movie also stars Renee Elise Goldsberry, Lisa Arrindell, Reed Birney, Kyanna Simone, Jaylon Gordon, Sylvia Grace Crim, Jane Rumbaua, L. Warren Young and more.
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" will debut sometime in 2017 on HBO.
