Sanaa Lathan To Make Feature Directorial Debut With Adaptation Of Angie Thomas’ ‘On The Come Up’
Netflix is reporting that actress Sanaa Lathan will be making her feature directorial debut on Paramount Players’ adaptation of Angie Thomas’ New York Times bestseller On the Come Up.
On The Come Up, from HarperCollins imprint Balzer & Bray, centers on 16-year-old Bri, who wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least win her first battle. But it’s hard to get your come up when you’re labeled a hoodlum at school, and your fridge at home is empty after your mom loses her job. So Bri pours her anger and frustration into her first song, which goes viral…for all the wrong reasons. Bri soon finds herself at the center of a controversy, portrayed by the media as more menace than MC. But with an eviction notice staring her family down, Bri doesn’t just want to make it—she has to. Even if it means becoming the very thing the public has made her out to be.
Lathan was Tony-nominated in 2003 for her Broadway performance in A Raisin in the Sun in the Best Featured Actress in a Play category. She recently joined the cast of the Emmy Award-winning HBO series Succession and will next be seen starring in the upcoming action thriller Hit and Run opposite Lior Raz.
Her short film Leap, which she directed, part of With/In, a film anthology shot during lockdown, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.