Oprah Winfrey to Star in ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ on HBO

Oprah Winfrey will executive produce and star in “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” an HBO movie based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Rebecca Skloot. “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks” tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks (Winfrey), the film chronicles her search to learn about the mother she never knew and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks’ cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever.

Veteran Broadway director George C. Wolfe is set to direct from his screenplay. Winfrey, Alan Ball, Peter Macdissi, Carla Gardini and Lydia Dean Pilcher will executive produce, and Rebecca Skloot will co-executive produce the film, which is a Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, Harpo Films and Cine Mosaic production.