KiKi Layne is coming to the small screen. Skydance Television nabbed rights to P. Djéli Clark’s fantasy historical novella “Ring Shout” in a “competitive situation,” and the “If Beale Street Could Talk” breakout has signed on to star in the planned TV series with “Harriet” filmmaker Kasi Lemmons attached to write, direct, and serve as showrunner. Variety confirmed the news.
Released this year, “Ring Shout” tells the story of an “otherworldly evil that has risen in the 1920s South in the form of monsters who take up residence within the bodies of people filled with hate – namely the Ku Klux Klan. D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ is helping to swell the Klan’s ranks and the monsters are drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of racism. Across the nation they spread fear and violence. But even monsters can die,” the source teases. “Standing in their way is a young Black woman, Maryse Boudreaux (Layne), and her two friends and fellow resistance fighters – a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter. Armed with blade, bullet, and bomb, they hunt their hunters and send the Klan’s demons straight to Hell. But something even bigger is brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to heat up. And Maryse, haunted by events of her past, is the only one who can put a stop to it all.”
Layne was last seen alongside Charlize Theron in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Netflix smash “The Old Guard.” “Ring Shout” will mark her first major television role.
“Harriet,” Lemmons’ Cynthia Erivo-led Harriet Tubman biopic, received two Oscar nods this year: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures. Her other features include “Eve’s Bayou” and “Black Nativity.” She’s directed episodes of “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker,” “Luke Cage,” and “Shots Fired.”
“The worst advice I’ve received was, ‘Never let them see weakness. Never let them see you cry.’ I don’t tend to cry in front of people, but I still thought it was not advice that I relished, or thought was useful,” Lemmons told us. “The best advice I’ve gotten has to do with tenacity. Tenacity is what gets you through. Filmmaking can be a very emotional roller coaster, and definitely the mood on a set comes from the top down, so I try to be zen. It’s the way I get through it best — it is just the easiest way for me to function.” She added, “The truest and greatest advice that I’ve received was, ‘Always wake up the same every day.’ It means be so centered and grounded in who you are that nothing really affects you. Great reviews don’t go to your head, terrible reviews don’t take you down — you’re just kind of sure of who you are. That is advice I follow.”
