The hour-plus monologue also includes excerpts from Douglass’ original essays and letters. The performance features Smith’s original rap music with references to both slavery and modern life in the U.S. Smith’s one-man show on Douglass was conceived over 20 years ago, and has been regularly modernized and reconstructed ever since. Newton Story (2001) and Rodney King (2017), which Netflix acquired last year. Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln stars Daniel Day Lewis in the title role and, amazingly, no one as Frederick Douglass, America’s leading abolitionist. The movie will be Lee’s third cinematic adaptation of Smith’s one-man stage shows, after A Huey P. Smith’s most beloved Spike Lee joint roles include Smiley in Do The Right Thing (1989) and Rudy in Malcolm X (1992). He is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable civil rights reformers in the history of the United States.įrederick Douglass Now will mark the latest collaboration between Lee and Smith, who has acted in 10 of Lee’s movies, beginning with the auteur’s second feature, School Daze (1988).

Spike Lee is set to direct Roger Guenveur Smith’s next film, Frederick Douglass Now, as first reported by Variety.įrederick Douglass was an American escaped slave-turned-Abolitionist leader in the 1800s.

13th film fredercik douglass