Oscar Winner Mo'Nique Will Return to Film in BLACKBIRD with Isaiah Washington

Oscar winner Mo'Nique, not seen on the big screen since 2009's PRECIOUS, has lined up her follow-up film.

According to Deadline, the comedian and actress is poised to join Isaiah Washington in the film adaptation of Larry Duplechan's novel BLACKBIRD. Patrik Ian Polk is set to direct.

Per the report, "newcomer Julian Walker plays a high-schooler, the star singer in the church choir, who feels like a misfit in his high school and who struggles with his sexual awakening and the realization he is gay, something that doesn't land well in a small religiously conservative Mississippi town. This coincides with his younger sister going missing and his parents splitting up. Mo'Nique plays another character who's not going to win mother of the year awards; she plays the youth's heartbroken mom, who blames her son's lifestyle revelation for his sister going missing. Washington plays his supportive father trying his best to help his son's transition to manhood."

"Blackbird is a film about the choices people are forced to make as they struggle to figure out how to be themselves," Hicks said in a statement today. "And why should just being who you are be a struggle? Since Mo'Nique won the Oscar, we have received a flood of scripts, but nothing captured our attention until Isaiah, who we have a high level of respect for, sent us Blackbird. We became instant fans of Patrik-Ian Polk and knew we had to get behind this important film.

"Mo'Nique's hard work and dedication landed her own TV sitcom, "The Parkers," which ran for five seasons. She would also go on to host a number of reality shows, including a beauty pageant for full-figured women on Oxygen called "F.A.T. Chance ("Fabulous and Thick")". It was evident that her success wouldn't stop at comedy and TV; it would also be felt on the big screen too. From movies like "The Queens of Comedy" and "Baby Boy," to "Two Can Play That Game," and "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins," Mo'Nique was signaling to the world that she was here to stay. Most recently she took the world by storm in her portrayal of the severely dysfunctional mom Mary Jones in the award-winning, much talked about film, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire", which just earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her only the fourth African-American female behind Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Hudson to win the prestigious award in the Best Supporting Actress category.

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