Irish actress Ruth Negga has been cast in Mud director Jeff Nichols’ upcoming film Loving.
The film is based on the landmark civil rights case Loving v. Virginia, which was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state’s anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as “white” and people classified as “colored”. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision held this prohibition was unconstitutional and ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.
Negga will play Mildred Loving, with Joel Edgerton cast as her husband Richard. Filming starts in September, after Nichols completes work on his first studio project, the Warner Bros. sci-fi film Midnight Special.
The news continues a great run for Negga, who shot to prominence in the US after a stint on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. She will next be seen as Tulip O’Hare in fantasy drama series Preacher, and will portray Lady Taria in Duncan Jones’ Warcraft.