Tracy Morgan is getting back to work, following the car accident last year that left him in the hospital for several months. He made one of his first public appearances since that accident last month that left him hospitalized for months when he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, and now it looks as if he is lining up his first post-accident recover film role.
The Tracking Board is reporting that the comic actor is in talks to star in director Lee Daniels’ upcoming biopic of Richard Pryor, Is It Something I Said?. Morgan will be playing pioneering black comic Redd Foxx, who was instrumental in encouraging the young, up-and-coming Pryor and who provided a place for him to perform in his own comedy club.
The script for the film is by Chicago writer/director Bill Condon. It is not connected to the Caleb Kane penned screenplay that made the 2006 Black List of the year’s best unproduced screenplays.
Mike Epps is set to headline the film as Pryor with Kate Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Taraji P. Henson, and Oprah Winfrey rounding out the cast.
Pryor himself told a fictionalized version of his life story when he wrote, directed and starred in the 1986 film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.
