Academy Award winner Regina King is the latest actor to take up the role of legendary Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president, and whose career prioritized advocating tirelessly for the poor, for working class people, for people of color, for women, and for the LGBTQ+ community. She was a forthright ally when it was often political suicide to be one.
If you watched the limited series “Mrs. America,” you saw Uzo Aduba deliver an indelible performance as Chisholm, and you might remember a news item from a few years ago that announced Viola Davis taking on the part herself.
Fast forward to 2021, with two separate films about Chisholm in the works at the same time. The Viola Davis project, still in development as “The Fighting Shirley Chisholm,” has passed to Danai Gurira (“Black Panther”). And now “Shirley,” from writer-director John Ridley, will star King and a cast that includes Lance Reddick (“John Wick”), Lucas Hedges (“Boy Erased”), André Holland (“Passing”) and Terrence Howard (“Empire”). Look, they made two movies about Truman Capote and the Lambada dance, so we’ll take two Shirleys any day.
