It’s official folks! Actress Lupita Nyong’o confirmed confirmed the rumors that she had optioned and got the film rights to Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie‘s“Americanah“.
The newly signed “Star Wars: Episode VII” actress, 31, announced the collaboration between her and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Productions — the company behind her Oscar-winning flick “12 Years A Slave” — in an Instagram post on Thursday.
“Yes!!! ‘Tis true: I acquired the rights to make a film of this amazing book by this amazing writer,” she wrote.
“It is such an honor to have the opportunity to bring Ms. Adichie’s brilliant book to the screen,” Nyong’o added in a statement, obtained by the Daily News. “Page after page I was struck by (the characters’) stories, whose experiences as African immigrants are so specific and also so imminently relatable. It is a thrilling challenge to tell a truly international story so full of love, humor and heart.”
Americanah” will also be produced by D2 Productions and Potboiler Productions, the filmmakers said in the statement. The rest of the cast has not yet been announced.
In addition to filming “Star Wars,” Nyong’o has begun production on Disney’s new adaptation of “The Jungle Book,” for which she will voice the mother wolf, Rakcha.
Adichie, 36, a Nigerian author known for her bestseller “Half of a Yellow Sun,” also has a celebrity fan in Beyoncé — she is featured on the pop star’s pro-femme anthem “Flawless,” from her latest self-titled studio album “Beyoncé.”