It’s good to be Tiffany Haddish. In addition to recently winning a Grammy for Best Comedy Album, the comedian/actress has been rumored to be a top choice to replace Ellen DeGeneres when she steps away from her talk show in 2022. In the meantime, Haddish is about to prove that she’s adept at much more than just being funny when she takes on the role of Olympian Florence Griffith Joyner in a new biopic, which Haddish will also produce.
As Variety reports:
The “Girls Trip” actress will star as Florence Griffith Joyner, known as “Flo-Jo” to her fans, who helped popularize track and field with her record-breaking Olympic run and flashy personality and style (she originated the “one-legger” look with her running suits). Many of the records that Joyner set in the 1988 Olympics, including those in the 100 m and 200 m, have yet to be broken. Joyner died in 1998 at the age of 38 of an epileptic seizure.
Al Joyner, Flo-Jo’s widower and her former coach, is also helping to produce the film and serving as a creative consultant. According to Variety, he has already started working with Haddish to train her for the role, using the same methods he used with his late wife.
It’s a befitting role for Haddish, who has said that Joyner was one of her childhood heroes. “I am looking forward to telling Flo-Jo’s story the way it should be told,” she said in a press release. “My goal with this film is making sure that younger generations know my ‘she-ro’ Flo-Jo, the fastest woman in the world to this day, existed.”
(Via Variety)
