Deadline brings word underused “Saturday Night Live” contributor Taran Killam is going to be joining Steve McQueen‘s new slave drama Twelve Years a Slave, playing a traveling showman who abducts the freed Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and sells him into slavery. Northup was a New York citizen who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841 and rescued from a cotton plantation in Louisiana in 1853. The film will follow his story.
Additional members of the cast include McQueen regular Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt and Paul Dano. Shooting is expected to get underway later this summer.
If you’re unfamiliar with Killam and/or don’t watch “Saturday Night Live”, he’s had small roles in comedies such as Just Married, Big Fat Liar and My Best Friend’s Girl and he’s engaged to and has a child with The Avengers so-star Cobie Smulders (“How I Met Your Mother”). But even more importantly, if you haven’t seen it, check out his writers’ room version of Swedish pop star Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” directly below followed by a comparison video (which is amazing).
I’m not sure how much Killam’s sense of humor will be necessary for McQueen’s drama, but it certainly works here.
