Actor Martin Lawrence has had a storied career across film and television and is officially writing the next chapter of it on the smaller screen as he has just boarded his first television project in almost a decade over at AMC for six episodes to start out.
News of the actor joining Demascus is reported today in The Hollywood Reporter. The piece says this is his first television project since 2014’s Partners, and he will appear as the title character’s Uncle Forty.
According to THR, the show follows “a 33-year-old Black man who goes on a journey of self-discovery using an innovative new technology that allows him to experience different versions of his own life. The series will follow the main character through those alternate realities as well as in his everyday life.”
Okieriete Onaodowan (Hamilton, Station 19) is set to play the lead, with Lawrence playing his uncle. Lawrence’s Forty is a man who has been better and whose health is failing, but he still sees himself as his family’s patriarch and is eager to be seen as such by others. The cast includes Janet Hubert and Caleb Eberhardt as well.
AMC ordered the project, created by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, project in February. Chisholm will serve as co-showrunner alongside Kirk Moore. Mark Johnson of Better Call Saul fame and Solvan Naim as a director have also joined the project. The show has no set release date at this time.
Lawrence got his start in television with What’s Happening Now! before moving on to film and other projects. He can be seen next in Mindcage, though the film does not have a release date either as of this moment.