Viola Davis to Play Harriet Tubman in HBO Film From ‘John Adams’ Scribe

April 27, 2015 5:24pm PT by Kate Stanhope

Steven Spielberg's Amblin TV will produce the biopic about the famous abolitionist.

Viola Davis will portray Harriet Tubman in a new HBO biopic from John Adams scribe Kirk Ellis and Steven Spielberg's Amblin TV, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Based on Kate Clifford Larson's book Bound for the Promise Land, the film will highlight Tubman's courageous acts leading slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad and later fighting with the Union during the Civil War.

Ellis is behind several of the channel's historical projects, including John Adams and the upcoming All the Way, about President Lyndon B. Johnson. Davis will exec produce with Amblin TV's Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank as well as Jim Lefkowitz, Doug Ellin, Cliff Dorfman and Julius Tennon.

An Oscar nominee for The Help, Davis is coming off the freshman run of ABC drama How to Get Away With Murder, for which she snagged a SAG award in January. Coincidentally, Kerry Washington, another Shondaland star, is set to play Anita Hill in the upcoming HBO movie Confirmation.

Davis and Ellin are repped by CAA. Ellis and Dorman 
are repped by ICM Partners. The book is repped by Doe Coover.