More casting additions have been added “The Roots” remake that will air in 2016. Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker and Anna Paquin have been added to the film based on the Alex Haley novel and film that was released in 1976. Also Roots drummer Questlove will serve as excuetive music producer.
Roots will air simultaneously on A&E, Lifetime, and the History channel it will be a four night 8hr mini-series with different directors for each episode, one of the most notable names is Mario Van Peebles and Laurence Fishburne has signed on to portray Alex Haley.
Here’s a list of some the cast below:
* Forest Whitaker (“Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “South Paw”) will play Fiddler, a slave who tries to mentor Kunta Kinte and ends up risking his own life to help him escape.
* Anna Paquin (“True Blood”) plays Nancy Holt, the wife of a Confederate officer who happens to have her own agenda when it comes to handling the slaves.
* Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“The Tudors”) plays Tom Lea, an uneducated slave owner who is desperate to claw his way into the elite company of Southern gentility.
* Anika Noni Rose (“Dream Girls,” “The Good Wife,” “The Princess and the Frog”) plays Kizzy, Kunta Kinte’s cherished, smart daughter who maintains her family pride and warrior spirit.
* Chad L. Coleman (“The Walking Dead,” “The Wire”) plays Mingo, the stern no-nonsense slave who really keeps the Lea plantation afloat.
* Regé-Jean Page (“Waterloo Road”) plays Chicken George, Kizzy’s son who is a handsome social magnet. He knows how to transfix a crowd with a story, yet doesn’t appreciate what he has until his luck abandons him.
* Erica Tazel (“Justified”) plays Matilda, a preacher’s daughter and love interest to Chicken George.
* Derek Luke (“Captain America: The First Avenger,” “Antwone Fisher”) plays Silla Ba Dibba, a military trainer charged with transforming teen boys into powerful Mandinka Warriors.
