Oprah Winfrey to Headline The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Oprah Winfrey will return to acting, headlining HBO Films’ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Oprah Winfrey (Selma, The Color Purple) will star in HBO Films’ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, based on Rebecca Skloot’s acclaimed bestselling nonfiction book of the same name. DGA winner, Emmy nominee and veteran Broadway director-producer George C. Wolfe (Lackawanna Blues, Angels in America) will direct from his screenplay. Winfrey, Academy Award, Emmy and Golden Globe winner Alan Ball (American Beauty, True Blood), Peter Macdissi (Banshee), Carla Gardini (The Hundred-Foot Journey) and Lydia Dean Pilcher (You Don’t Know Jack) will executive produce, and Rebecca Skloot will co-executive produce the film, a Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, Harpo Films and Cine Mosaic production.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks (Oprah Winfrey), the film chronicles her search to learn about the mother she never knew and 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.

Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which took more than a decade to research and write, instantly hit the New York Times bestseller list upon publication, and remained there for more than four years.

Henrietta Lacks’ sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman and granddaughter Jeri Lacks are consultants on the film, which aims to begin production this summer.

(Photo Credit: Adriana M. Barraza / WENN.com)

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