Jeffrey Wright and Octavia Spencer Will Star in Death of a Salesman Film, Adapted by Tony Kushner

Tony winner Jeffrey Wright and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer will star in a new film adaptation of Death of a Salesman. The movie will be directed by Chinonye Chukwu. Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner is co-adapting the play by Arthur Miller with Chukwu.

Wright, who will portray Willy Loman, won the Tony Award in 1994 for his performance in Kushner’s Angels in America: Perestroika and earned a Tony nomination in 2002 for Topdog/Underdog. His other Broadway credits include Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk and A Free Man of Color. Wright originated the role of Belize in the Broadway productions of Kushner’s Angels in America (Parts One and Two) and later reprised his performance in the HBO adaptation, winning an Emmy Award. He is a seven-time Emmy nominee, including two nods in 2024 for The Last of Us. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in 2023 for American Fiction.

Spencer, who will take on the role of Linda Loman, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2012 for The Help, and received nominations in the same category in 2017 for Hidden Figures and in 2018 for The Shape of Water. Her other screen credits include Fruitvale Station, Ma, The Shack, and the limited series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker, for which she received an Emmy nomination.

Death of a Salesman, Miller's ruthless interrogation of the American dream, premiered on Broadway in February 1949 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. It was most recently on Broadway in 2022, with Wendell Pierce as Willy Loman and Sharon D Clarke as Linda Loman, it was the first Broadway production to cast Black actors as the Loman family.  The cast also featured Tony winner André De Shields as Ben.