‘Central Park Five’: Felicity Huffman And Jharrel Jerome Join Ava DuVernay’s Netflix Series

By Denise Petski, Deadline
Published July 25, 2018, 3:59 p.m. ET

Felicity Huffman (American Crime), Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight) and Jovan Adepo (Fences)  have joined the cast of Central Park Five, Netflix’s limited series from A Wrinkle in Time and 13th director Ava DuVernay.

Based on a true story that gripped the nation, Central Park Five will chronicle the notorious case of five teenagers of color who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. The four episode limited series will focus on the five teenagers from Harlem — Antron McCray (Adepo), Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise (Jerome). The series will span from the spring of 1989, when each were first questioned about the incident, to 2014 when they were exonerated and a settlement was reached with the city of New York. The series will premiere on Netflix in 2019.

Huffman will play Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor who headed the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes office during the case. Jerome’s Korey Wise is one of the wrongfully convicted five who was charged as an adult in the case and served 12 years in prison before being exonerated. Adepo’s Antron McCray, another member of the wrongfully convicted five, was later exonerated and released after serving six years in a New York State prison.

They join previously announced Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga, and John Leguizamo. DuVernay will write and direct all four episodes of the narrative series. Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King from Participant Media, Oprah Winfrey/Harpo Films, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh from Tribeca Productions and DuVernay will executive produce.

Desperate Housewives alum Huffman recently starred in ABC’s limited series American Crime, receiving three consecutive Emmy nominations for her performance. She also is partnering with ABC on House of Moore, a dark hour-long comedy, which is currently in development at the network and which Huffman is executive producing.

Jerome made his feature film debut in Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning film Moonlight. His other film credits include Anthony Mandler’s Monster and First Match, currently streaming on Netflix and can next be seen in Tyarisha Poe’s independent film Selah and the Spades. On the TV side, he is a series regular on AT&T Audience Network’s drama series Mr. Mercedes. He’s repped by Kipperman Management and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern.

Adepo is next set to star opposite Wyatt Russell in Bad Robot/Paramount’s Overlord set for release in October. He also will be seen this fall starring opposite Elizabeth Olsen and Kelly Marie Tran in Facebook Watch’s original series Sorry For Your Loss.