Netflix’s adaptation of the weird and wonderful Gerard Way-Gabriel Bá comic series Umbrella Academy already had a pretty great-sounding cast. But it just got even better with the addition of R&B icon Mary J. Blige.
Images: Kevork Djansezian / Stringer and Dark Horse.
Netflix has announced that Blige – coming off the back of her Oscar-nominated acting and singing performances for Mudbound – will be joining the series as a regular. She’ll be playing Cha Cha, one half of a psychotic pair of masked, time-travelling assassins in the original comic, tasked with eliminating fellow time-traveller and Academy member 00.05, AKA “The Boy”, who will be played in the show by Aidan Gallagher.
The casting call describes Cha Cha – who was male in the comics, and went around murdering people while donning a cartoonish blue bear mask – as someone who “thinks of herself as a ‘pain artist’” and “doesn’t care for people”, except for her partner in time-travel murder-crime, Hazel. Hazel will also be a character on the series, but no casting announcements have been made so far. But either way, it’s time to get very excited about seeing Mary J. Blige play a crazy assassin in the future. Umbrella Academy is set to hit Netflix next year.
[THR]