‘Lucifer’ Alum Tom Ellis Joins Sterling K. Brown In Hulu’s ‘Washington Black’

Lucifer alum Tom Ellis is set as a series regular in Washington Black, the Sterling K. Brown-fronted adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s novel, which received a straight-to-series order at Hulu. Twilight Zone writer Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is adapting the limited series for 20th Television.

Washington Black follows the extraordinary 19th century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black – an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life. Brown will play the gregarious, larger-than-life Medwin Harris, who traveled the world after a traumatic childhood as a Black refugee in Nova Scotia as the de facto Mayor of Black Halifax prioritizes the community over everything except Washington Black, his young protégé. Meeting Wash sends him down a challenging path of self-discovery, and as the barricades around his heart start to fall, Medwin will learn to dream again.

2022 Hulu Pilot & Series Orders

Ellis will play Christopher “Titch” Wilde, an eccentric, passionate steampunk inventor whose youthful enthusiasm masks an inner vulnerability. A disturbing death at his family’s sugar plantation catapults Titch on a remarkable journey across the sky with young George Washington Black at his side. Titch finds himself thrust into the position of mentor and father figure to Wash — a role he is ill-prepared for because Titch is chasing the shadow of his own father, an inevitable reckoning that threatens to doom him and Wash both.

Ellis joins Ernest Kingsley Jr., who stars in the title role, along with Iola Evans, Edward Bluemel, Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Brown, who also serves as executive producer.

Washington Black is executive produced by Hinds, who also serves as showrunner, along with Brown under his Indian Meadows Productions banner, series writer Jennifer Johnson, and The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jeremy Bell, Lindsay Williams and DJ Goldberg. Series directors Wanuri Kahiu and Mo Marable also serve as executive producers, along with Anthony Hemingway. Esi Edugyan is co-producer.

Ellis is coming off the titular role as Lucifer Morningstar in Lucifer, which wrapped its sixth and final season in September. He recently finished filming a leading role in Players, a romantic comedy from Netflix co-starring Gina Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr.