Pablo Schreiber and Kathleen Chalfant Join HBO Film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight

Tony nominees Pablo Schreiber and Kathleen Chalfant will join previously announced stars Christopher Plummer, Frank Langella and Benjamin Walker in the HBO film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, according to Deadline.com. Stephen Frears directs the film, which chronicles the legal battle that erupted between Ali and the U.S. government when he became a conscientious objector and declined to serve in the Vietnam War.

Schreiber will play Covert Becker, a Supreme Court clerk who doesn’t hide his contempt for liberals. Kathleen Chalfant will play Ethel Harlan, wife of Supreme Court Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II (Plummer). The cast also features Danny Glover, Barry Levinson, Ed Begley Jr. and Bob Balaban.

Schreiber, a Tony nominee for Awake and Sing!, most recently appeared on the New York stage in Gruesome Playground Injuries. He starred in the Broadway revival of Desire Under the Elms and has appeared off-Broadway in Reasons to be Pretty, Dying City and Mr. Marmalade. A vet of the recent boxing-centered series Lights Out, Schreiber is currently a series regular on CBS’ A Gifted Man.

Chalfant received a Tony nomination for Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and won multiple awards for creating the role of Vivian Bearing in Margaret Edson’s Wit. Her other off-Broadway credits include Painting Churches, Talking Heads, Family Week, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell. 

Shawn Slovo wrote the script for Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, which is executive produced by Frank Doelger, Tracey Scoffield, Jonathan Cameron and Frears.