Julia Roberts has just become another high profile name to jump on board a project for Amazon Studios. The veteran actress is set to star and produce the studio’s adaptation of Little Bee.
Based on the novel by Chris Cleave – which is also known as The Other Hand – the story centres on a Nigerian asylum-seeker and a British magazine editor who meet during the oil conflict in the Niger Delta, and are reunited in England several years later. Roberts will portray the character of the British magazine Editor, Sarah O’Rourke.
Murder in the First’s Kathleen Robertson is to adapt the script. Roberts is also set to produce for her Red Om Films production company together with her producing partners Lisa Gillan and Marisa Yeres Gill. Gil Netter will also produce.
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The story is quite a timely one. Cleave was inspired as a university student by his temporary employment in an asylum detention centre. He wrote the book in an attempt to humanise the plight of asylum-seekers in Britain. The novel examines the treatment of refugees by the asylum system, as well as issues of British colonialism, globalization, political violence and personal accountability.
Roberts was last seen on the big screen opposite Owen Wilson and Jacob Trembley in Wonder. She will also be starring in TV series Homecoming with her next big screen outing will come in the form of Peter Hedges Ben is Back.
