Whoopi Goldberg Set To Produce And Act In Film About Emmett Till’s Mom
Whoopi Goldberg has a new project in the works, focusing on Emmett Till. But this film will focus on his mom.
Not only will Goldberg be producing the film Till but she will be playing Alma Carthan, Emmett Till’s grandmother.
“We have waited a very long time to bring this historically necessary important film to people,” Goldberg said per Variety. “And as we watch the repression of American History when it comes to people of color it makes it even that more important.”
Joining the EGOT winner will be HBO’s Watchmen actress Danielle Deadwyler as Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
“It is a gift to learn the legacy and intimacies of our ancestors, those familial and communal, as is the life of Mamie Till-Mobley, a public leader and mother of the movement,” she said.
The film will be based on Till-Mobley’s decision to make an open casket for her son after his brutal murder and allowing Jet magazine to publish the photos so the world to see the terrors of the incident. This moment was the start of many acts leading to the civil rights movement.
“I am charged with humility and great will to embody her life at such an integral moment of personal tragedy and political rebellion, a boon to the civil rights movement, and to represent the joy in the love and life shared between Mamie Till and her beloved Emmett Till,” Deadwyler said about embodying this character.
She continued: “I am grateful for the women who support me as the one to carry the labor of this embodiment and as an inheritor of such a lineage. Much gratitude for Chinonye Chukwu, Barbara Broccoli, Whoopi Goldberg, Alana Mayo, and Pam Abdy, amongst many others, for the undertaking we seek to uplift and transfigure with this film.”
Principal photography on Till is set to begin in September in Atlanta per Variety.
