Emmy and Golden Globe-winning Big Little Lies star Alexander Skarsgard has signed on to star alongside Tessa Thompson (Thor: Ragnarok), Ruth Negga (Preacher) and Andre Holland (Moonlight) in the cast of Passing, the directorial debut of actress Rebecca Hall (The Gift, Vicky Cristina Barcelona).
Scripted by Hall and based on the novel of the same name by Nella Larsen, Passing follows “two African-American women (Thompson and Negga), each of whom can ‘pass’ as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1920s Harlem.”
“Nella Larsen’s Passing is an astonishing book about two women struggling not just with what it meant to be black in America in 1929, but with gender conventions, the performance of femininity, the institution of marriage, the responsibilities of motherhood, and the ways in which all of those forces intersect,” states Hall. “I came across the novel at a time when I was trying to reckon creatively with some of my personal family history, and the mystery surrounding my bi-racial grandfather on my American mother’s side. In part, making this film is an exploration of that history, to which I’ve never really had access.”
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Passing is currently in production ahead of an expected release in 2020.
