Kingsley Ben-Adir Cast as Bob Marley in New Biopic

Kingsley Ben-Adir has been cast in Paramount Pictures’ upcoming Bob Marley biopic, Deadline reports. Ben-Adir will play the Jamaican reggae legend in a film directed by King Richard’s Reinaldo Marcus Green. Deadline also states that Ziggy Marley, Rita Marley, Cedella Marley, and Robert Teitel will serve as producers. Ben-Adir has previously appeared in The OA, Peaky Blinders, and as Malcolm X in One Night in Miami. 

Bob Marley died from cancer in 1981 at 36 years old. In 2010, his last recorded show—a September 1980 concert at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theatre—was released as an album dubbed Live Forever. The reggae legend was also the subject of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated 2018 documentary ReMastered: Who Shot the Sheriff? about the 1976 assassination attempt on Marley.

Read Pitchfork’s feature “Punk, Disco, and Silly Love Songs: Revisiting the Explosive Summer of 1976.”