Ashley Thomas has been cast as the male lead opposite Adrienne Warren in the upcoming Hulu series, Black Cake— Shadow and Act has confirmed. He also joins Mia Issac.
The series is based on the book by Charmaine Wilkerson. The project is from Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Zetna Fuentes will direct the pilot. Cerar wrote the adaptation and is also the showrunnerr.
Here’s the official description:
In the late 1960s, a runaway bride named Covey disappears into the surf off the coast of Jamaica and is feared drowned or a fugitive on the run for her husband’s murder. Fifty years later in California, a widow named Eleanor Bennett, loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children, Byron and Benny, a flash drive that holds previously untold stories of her journey from the Caribbean to America. These stories, narrated by Eleanor, shock her children and challenge everything they thought they knew about their family’s origin.
He will play Byron Bennett, “a brilliant ocean scientist, whose formidable work ethic has made him a leader in his field and a popular social media influencer. His professional success comes second only to his relationship with his mother, Eleanor. In the wake of her death, Byron is tasked with carrying out her final wish – a task that forces a reunion with his estranged sister, Benny, and brings to light harrowing secrets, confronting everything Byron thought he knew about himself and his family.”
Thomas will be seen soon in ITV/Britbox’s Ipcress File and FX’s Great Expectations.