22-year-old actor/rapper, Keith Stanfield, who practically stole every scene in which he appeared in Destin Daniel Crettin’s Short Term 12 – his feature film acting debut – and whose performance earned him a best supporting actor Spirit Award nomination, has joined the cast of Ava DuVernay’s MLK drama Selma, playing Jimmie Lee Jackson, a civil rights protestor who was shot and killed by Alabama State Troopers in 1965 – a death that helped inspire the Selma to Montgomery marches, an important event in the American Civil Rights movement. He was 26 years old.
Stanfield joins David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson in a film produced by Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Christian Colson (who won an Oscar for producing Slumdog Millionaire). Paramount Pictures is also on board the Pathe UK-backed project, which centers on the 1965 landmark voting rights campaign regarded as the peak of the civil rights movement.
Look for Stanfield next in a supporting role in Universal’s The Purge: Anarchy, and James Franco’s indie drama Memoria.
By the way, Short Term 12 is now streaming on Netflix.
