Aunjanue Ellis joins the cast of Barry Jenkins' film adaptation of James Baldwin's 'If Beale Street Could Talk'

Quantico star Aunjanue Ellis has joined the cast of Barry Jenkins’ film adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk in an undisclosed role.

She joins Stephan James, Teyonah Parris, Regina King, Colman Domingo, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Beach and newcomer Kiki Layne, who plays the lead of Tish. The cast also includes Dave Franco, Ed Skrein and Finn Wittrock.

In July, we learned Jenkins would direct the adaptation. It was later reported that Shots Fired star Stephan James had been cast in the film in the male lead role of Fonny, Tish’s fiance. Layne was later cast as Tish and Parris as Tish’s sister, Ernestine.  Later, Regina King was cast in a “key role,” suspected to be Tish’s mother, Sharon and Colman Domingo was cast as Tish’s father.

Beach and Ellis are Fonny’s parents, Alice and Frank.

Ellis has portrayed the heroine-turned-villainess, FBI Director Miranda Shaw in the first two seasons of ABC’s Quantico. In a mass exodus of original and prior cast members, Ellis is not expected to return for the third season. Her other major roles include the films The Help, The Birth of a Nation and a leading role in the miniseries The Book of Negroes. 

Baldwin’s novel revolves around a pregnant 19-year-old Harlem woman, named Tish, and her 22-year-old fiance, Fonny. After he is falsely accused of raping another woman, she, her family and their lawyer work to prove his innocence.

For years, Jenkins has talked about his admiration of Baldwin and his desire to adapt Beale Street. He wrote the screen adaption for the novel when he wrote Moonlight. He told Esquire, “Beale Street I wrote in Berlin. Moonlight I wrote in Belgium. I wrote it without the rights because again, in some ways, it was a reaction to putting so much energy in the commercial company. No matter how much you convince yourself, that kind of work purely about making money. I said, Well, I’m going to just do exactly what I want to do. I love this book. I love this play. I’m going to write those things, and I’ll fucking figure it out after. Yeah, I mean, here it is three years later. I still don’t have the rights to the book, as I shouldn’t. Mr. Baldwin’s only been adapted once. This would only be the second time. It’s a big deal. It’s a big responsibility. But because of the success of Moonlight in the marketplace, the estate has seen the film. And I think in that film they can see my intentions with Beale Street, so it’s on the horizon. I don’t have the rights, but it’s on the horizon.”

Baldwin’s sister, Gloria-Karefa-Smart said, “We are delighted to entrust Barry Jenkins with this adaptation. Barry is a sublimely conscious and gifted filmmaker, whose Medicine for Melancholy impressed us so greatly that we had to work with him.”

Since Moonlight, Jenkins has directed a critically-acclaimed episode of Netflix’s Dear White People and is set to direct an Amazon miniseries based on The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

Deadline first reported the news of Ellis’ casting.