Steve McQueen to Make Paul Robeson Biopic

Director Steve McQueen has announced he is working on a biopic about American actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.

“His life and legacy was the film I wanted to make the second after Hunger” McQueen said on stage at the Hidden Heroes awards in New York. Hunger was his debut film about an IRA hunger striker. “But I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the juice,” he said.

The son of an escaped slave, Robeson led an extraordinary life as a lawyer, actor, singer and activist who supported causes such as the Republican in the Spanish Civil War and unemployed Welsh miners. Harry Belafonte is involved in production of the movie, the Guardian reports.

Though the Robeson picture is in the works, McQueen revealed that his next film after the breakout success of his 12 Years a Slave will be a full-length adaptation of the British television series “Widows,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Read more at the Guardian