Jharrel Jerome had quite a triumphant 2019 awards season, so I’ve been wondering what the 2019 Emmy Winner and 2020 Young Futurists honoree will be appearing in next. Fans have spotted him co-starring in Tayarisha Poe’s Selah and the Spades, which dropped on Amazon Prime this spring, but of course, eyes are extra-peeled for his next leading role.
Enter notably eccentric director Boots Riley. On Monday morning, the Sorry to Bother You director tweeted out news of Jerome’s next role, opting for the more casual debut instead of exclusively announcing it to the trades.
“I have a show about a 13-ft tall Black man who lives in Oakland,” Riley tweeted. It’s called I’m A Virgo. Jharrel Jerome is playing the lead. I’m doing this w/ Michael Ellenberg’s Media Res. We haven’t decided on the network/streamer. It’ll be dark, absurd, hilarious, and important.”
Imagine Jerome’s character’s Tinder bio—“Hi, I’m a Virgo and I love long walks on the beach, which doesn’t take me that long because I’m 13-feet tall.”
According to Deadline, this will be Riley’s first foray into the television world. This new project comes from his script deal with Media Res (who produced The Morning Show on Apple TV+) in 2018.
If you’ve seen Riley’s aforementioned big-screen directorial feature debut, Sorry to Bother You, you know the one thing you can expect is the unexpected. And since Jerome is involved, I’m automatically intrigued.
As an aside—if you can allow me to mention something “absurd and hilarious”—the first thing I noticed when I was searching for Getty Images of Jerome for the cover pic was his picture with Megan Thee Stallion at 2019 American Music Awards. True to her name, Meg towered over Jerome, but now that Jerome will be 13 feet tall in his next project, can we get an updated side-by-side?
Hey, with Boots Riley, anything is possible. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for which network or streaming platform scoops up this curious project.