Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose is joining the cast of Little Fires Everywhere.
Variety broke the news Friday that Anika will be guest-starring on the Hulu miniseries expected to debut next year and based on Celeste Ng’s best-selling 2017 novel. Anika, well known for her roles in playing one-third of the Dreamgirls and voicing the first Disney African-American animated heroine in The Frog Princess, will play Paula Hawthorne, an art professor mentor to the younger version of Mia, played by Tiffany Boone. This week, AnnaSophia Robb of The Carrie Diaries TV series based on Candace Bushnell’s young adult novel; Alona Tal, Matthew Barnes, Andy Favreau and Luke Bracey were also named in Deadline as playing some of the characters in flashbacks.
The novel follows struggling artist Mia, played by Kerry Washington, who moves to Shaker Heights, Ohio with her teen daughter, and her neighbor Elena, played by Reese Witherspoon, the traditional suburban mother of four, as their lives intertwine through their children and friends.
Reese with her media brand Hello Sunshine and Kerry with her production company Simpson Street are also executive producing the miniseries. Author Celeste will also serve as an executive producer.
This isn’t Anika’s first time acting in a project based on a book. She also had roles in Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything motion picture; Terry McMillan’s A Day Late and a Dollar Short TV movie; Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun movie; Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls motion picture; Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency TV series; Christopher Paul Curtis‘ The Watsons Go to Birmingham TV movie; Gigi Levangie Grazer’s The Starter Wife miniseries; and Alex Haley’s Roots in the 2016 miniseries remake.
‘Little Fires Everywhere’ rounds out casting for Hulu adaptation