Janelle Monáe will star in renowned feminist Gloria Steinem’s upcoming biopic, The Glorias: A Life on the Road.
According to Deadline, Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore will portray Steinem at different phases of her storied life, including as a journalist and activist advocating for women’s rights.
Monáe will play Dorothy Pitman Hughes, the women’s and civil rights activist who co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance and Ms. magazine with Steinem in the early 1970s.
The multihyphenate is having a much-talked-about year, which has included the release of her critically acclaimed album, Dirty Computer, which received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.
Last week during an appearance on CBS This Morning, the Wondaland Records founder discovered the news about her nod.
“Oh my God, really?” Monáe shockingly responded. “This album is so much bigger than me. It’s about a community of dirty computers, of marginalized voices.”
“Being a young, Black, queer woman in America, there was something I had to say and a group of people I wanted to celebrate.” —Janelle Monáe
"Being a young, black, queer woman in America, there was something I had to say .. a group of people I wanted to celebrate, and I’m happy to be representing them. I hope they feel seen, I hope they feel heard. I hope they feel loved. & I hope they feel celebrated" –@JanelleMonae pic.twitter.com/eXPZXyIgWe
— Norah O'Donnell 🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) December 7, 2018
She continued, “I’m happy to be representing them. I hope they feel seen, I hope they feel heard. I hope they feel loved. And I hope they feel celebrated.”
Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine and is regarded as the spokeswoman for Second-Wave feminism, a two-decade-long women’s rights era in the United States that was influenced by the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1969, NY mag published Steinem’s article “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation,” which brought her national acclaim.
The Glorias: A Life on the Road will be directed by Julie Taymor. It will be produced under Fifty-Four Pictures by Taymor, Lynn Hendee and Alex Saks.
Monáe appeared in Oscar-nominated films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. She was recently cast in the Harriet Tubman biopic and stars with Steve Carrell in Welcome to Marwen, which will release in theaters nationwide Dec. 21.
