A new series from Mare Of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back) has landed a highly coveted director. According to Deadline, the HBO project has enlisted Salli Richardson-Whitfield as a director and executive producer. Richardson-Whitfield recently earned directing credits on HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty and period drama, The Gilded Age.
Deadline reports the series will star Mark Ruffalo (This Much I Know Is True, Spotlight) and is set in a working-class suburb outside of Philadelphia. The crime drama will center on Ruffalo’s FBI agent in pursuit of a suspect in a string of robberies at drug houses. The limited series is part of Ingelsby’s overall deal with the premium network.
Richardson-Whitefield will direct multiple episodes along with Jeremiah Zagar (We the Animals, Hustle), who will also direct the pilot and executive produce, via Deadline. Other executive producers include wiip’s Mark Roybal (No Country For Old Men, Doubt) and Paul Lee (The Summer I Turned Pretty, White House Plumbers), David Crockett (Captive State, Gone Baby Gone), and co-executive producers Jeremy Yaches (Voyeur, The Last Ice Merchant) and Nicole Jordan-Webber (A Star Is Born, Under the Lights).
Richardson-Whitfield began her career acting, starring in films such as the Keenan Ivory Wayans (In Living Color) comedy A Low Down Dirty Shame, The Great White Hype along with Samuel L. Jackson (Marvel’s Secret Invasion), and the zombie action thriller, I Am Legend with Will Smith (King Richard). She transitioned to directing with 2016’s Queen Sugar. Since then, she has donned episodes across genres and platforms including Apple’s fantasy thriller See, Amazon’s Wheel of Time, and Starz’s American Gods and Survivor’s Remorse.
According to Deadline, her work on the high society drama, The Gilded Age, earned her the TV Directing Award from the African American Film Critics Association. She also earned a nomination from the NAACP Awards for her work on Netflix’s Luke Cage, and a Hugo Award nomination for directing Wheel of Time.