Jaden Smith will play a dress-wearing slave in a new movie.
The 15-year-old actor – who is the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith – has signed up to star in ‘The Good Lord Bird’ alongside ‘Ray Donovan’ star Liev Schreiber, reports deadline.com.
The movie, which is an adaptation of the 2013 National Book Award winner by James McBride, is set in Kansas in 1856 and follows slave Henry ‘Onion’ Shackleford (Smith), a young slave who links up with radical abolitionist John Brown (Schreiber) and his crew of freedom fighters.
The satirical tale is told through the eyes of Onion, who is initially mistaken for a girl, as he follows Brown in his historic campaign en route to the Harper’s Ferry raid which helped spark the US civil war.
The book the movie is based on was named in the top 10 Books of the Year last year, and was a New York Times best-seller.
Schreiber will produce alongside James McBride and Brian Taylor.
Smith was most recently seen opposite Jackie Chan in ‘Karate Kid’ and ‘After Earth’ alongside his famous father, and also has sequel ‘Karate Kid 2’ in the pipeline.
Jaden Smith to play cross-dressing slave
