Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins (Best Adapted Screenplay, Moonlight) directs and serves as showrunner on Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming limited series The Underground Railroad, based on the award-winning novel by Colson Whitehead. Amazon’s just released a riveting trailer for the 10 episode limited series which follows Cora Randall (played by Thuso Mbedu) and her quest to escape from slavery in the deep South.
In addition to newcomer Thuso Mbedu, the cast of the limited series includes Chase W. Dillon, Joel Edgerton, Aaron Pierre, William Jackson Harper, Sheila Atim, and Amber Gray. Peter De Jersey, Chukwudi Iwuji, Damon Herriman, Lily Rabe, Irone Singleton, Mychal-Bella Bowman, Marcus “MJ” Gladney, Jr., Will Poulter, and Peter Mullan also star.
Director/showrunner Barry Jenkins serves as executive producer with Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Brad Pitt, Richard Heus, Jacqueline Hoyt, and author Colson Whitehead.
The series is a Plan B, Pastel and Big Indie with Amazon Studios production.
All 10 episodes of The Underground Railroad will be released worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on May 14, 2021.
The Underground Railroad Plot, Courtesy of Amazon:
The Underground Railroad chronicles Cora Randall’s (Mbedu) desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping a Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.
Over the course of her journey, Cora is pursued by Ridgeway (Edgerton), a bounty hunter who is fixated on bringing her back to the plantation she escaped; especially since her mother Mabel is the only one he has never caught.
As she travels from state to state, Cora contends with the legacy of the mother that left her behind and her own struggles to realize a life she never thought was possible.
