“I’m writing my first movie script which will go into production very soon and I’m so excited. I can’t say the title yet because it’s all top secret, but over the next few years I will be maturing into somebody who is not just up there on the screen. My next step will be directing, that is my ultimate goal”.

Words from actress Thandie Newton in an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail a few days ago.

Naturally, I had to do some sniffing around to see if I could learn anything about this secret directorial debut Newton plans to make, and I found an item that I posted on this site last year, in which she shared, during another interview, that: 

“I’m writing now… I’m adapting a book that I love… set in Oakland and Brooklyn in the 1960s USA… so it’s the Black Panthers, Civil Rights…”

Unfortunately, she didn’t give anymore information than that. But I wonder if the script she told the Daily Mail recently that she’s working on is the same one that she talked about last year.

I kept hoping she’d reveal the book title, but she didn’t. So, of course, I had to run through the library in my mind, trying to figure out what book this might be. And, well, the clues she’s given are far too broad to come up with a short list: specifically, set in 1960s USA (Oakland & Brooklyn), and centered around the Black Panthers and movement towards Civil Rights. 

How many books fit that description?

I suppose we could assume that she may be adapting the book for herself to not only direct, but to star in, and if so, then we can further narrow down the list to books (fiction and non-fiction) set in that time period as the story’s backdrop, with a black woman at the center of the narrative. Assuming of course…

Still… even though I certainly haven’t read every book, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that the list is long.

I’ll let you guys come up with your own guesses.

But Thandie Newton will make her directorial debut sometime soon, so stay tuned…