HBO Strikes Overall Deal With Salli Richardson-Whitfield; Actor-Turned-Director To Helm Eps Of ‘The Gilded Age’ & Adam McKay’s Lakers Drama

EXCLUSIVE: Salli Richardson-Whitfield, the Eureka and I Am Legend star turned director, has signed an overall deal with HBO.

Richardson-Whitfield has struck a two-year deal with the premium cable network to develop projects. She has also come on board to direct and exec produce a handful of major titles for the WarnerMedia-owned company.

She will be an exec producer on Julian Fellowes’ upcoming drama series The Gilded Age, in addition to directing four episodes, and will also direct two episodes of Adam McKay’s upcoming untitled Lakers project, which is based on Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.

Richardson-Whitfield has had an interesting career trajectory. Having started voicing a character on Disney’s animated series Gargoyles, she was a series regular on Paul Haggis’ CBS drama Family Law, Syfy’s Eureka and Freeform’s Stitchers as well as featuring in movies such as The Great White Hype, alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Antwone Fisher, alongside Denzel Washington, and I Am Legend, alongside Will Smith.

Having directed a couple of episodes of Eureka, she was given the chance by Ava DuVernay to direct back-to-back episodes of OWN drama Queen Sugar, which led her to helm episodes of WGN’s Underground, ABC’s Scandal and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here and Netflix’s Luke Cage. Recent credits include Apple’s See, Netflix’s Altered Carbon and Amazon’s The Wheel of Time.

In addition to her overall deal at HBO, she currently has series in development as a director/producer at multiple streaming platforms.

Richardson-Whitfield is represented by More/Medavoy Management, Kaplan/Stahler, and Innovative Artists.