SCANDAL's Kerry Washington to Star in Anita Hill Biopic for HBO

The Hollywood Reporter reports exclusively that Kerry Washington is set to portray Anita Hill in an upcoming TV movie biopic for HBO.

Titled CONFIRMATION, the film will follow "the explosive 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings (at which Hill testified), which brought the country to a standstill and forever changed the way people think about sexual harassment, victims' rights and modern-day race relations."

Oscar-nominated writer Susannah Grant will pen the script and executive produce the drama. Sources tell THR that Rick Famuyiwa is currently in talks to helm the project, but no deal is in place.

Since 2012, Washington has starred on theABC drama Scandal, a Shonda Rhimes series in which Washington plays Olivia Pope, a Crisis management expert to the President. In 2013, she gained wide public recognition for her role and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television series.

Washington is also known for her roles as Ray Charles' wife, Della Bea Robinson, in the film Ray (2004), as Idi Amin's wife Kay in The Last King of Scotland (2006), as Alicia Masters, love interest of Ben Grimm/The Thing in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007, and as Broomhilda von Schaft, Django's wife, in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012). She has also starred in the critically acclaimed independent films Our Song (2000), The Dead Girl (2006), and Night Catches Us (2010).

In April 2014, Time magazine included Washington in its annual TIME 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World."

Photo Credit: Jim Smeal / BEImages