How to get away with making a movie during hiatus: much awarded actress (two Tonys, one SAG Award) Viola Davis is jumping back into movies before she returns to Shonda Rhimes’s hit show. She’s going to star in “Custody,” directed by James Lapine, the famed author of “Into the Woods.”
Lapine has not directed a feature film since the clever Michael J. Fox film “Life with Mikey” back in 1993. But he’s been steady winner and nominee at the Tony Awards over the last 30 years. He also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for writing “Sunday in the Park with George” for Stephen Sondheim.
Davis is enmeshed in nefarious activities on “Murder,” but she’s going to get a change of pace in “Custody.” She plays Judge Martha Sherman, who presides over the custody case of a young woman (Catalina Sandino Moreno, Oscar nominee for “Maria Full of Grace”) trying to keep her children. Casting has begun to put together the large cast, including the judge’s husband.
Lauren Versel and Katie Mustard are producing with Davis’s production company, Juvee, run by the star’s astute husband Julius Tennon. Juvee has a lot of other projects coming, including one for Davis to play beloved Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
I’m for anything with Viola Davis. She’s in the Top Five of all actresses anywhere.
