Jay Will To Topline Chiwetel Ejiofor Drama ‘Rob Peace’

EXCLUSIVE: Tulsa King‘s Jay Will has landed the title role in Rob Peace — the second feature from Academy Award-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, on the heels of the Netflix-acquired The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which he’s directing from his own script.

The film, first announced in 2019, is based on Jeff Hobbs’ best-selling biography The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League. It follows Robert Peace, who made his way to Yale on scholarship after growing up in a crime-ridden section of Newark, New Jersey. He’d major during his time there in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, working in a lab researching cancer and infectious diseases, while at the same time making six figures from the sale of marijuana. While Pearce graduated with honors in 2002, the promise of his future crumbled when he was killed in a drug-related shooting in 2011.

The film currently in production is being produced by Los Angeles Media Fund, in association with Participant. Producers are Antoine Fuqua, Andrea Calderwood, Kat Samick, Jeffrey Soros, Simon Horsman, Rebecca Hobbs and Alex Kurtzman. Jeff Skoll and Robert Kessel are exec producing alongside Luke Rodgers and Jamin O’Brien.

Will is perhaps best known for his role as Tyson Mitchell — the driver for Sylvester Stallone’s crime boss Dwight “The General” Manfredi — in the hit Paramount+ crime drama Tulsa King from Taylor Sheridan and Terence Winter, which was renewed for a second season in November.

He’s a Juilliard alum who proved a standout of the prestigious institution’s 2021 graduating class, and prior to graduation booked a recurring role in the fourth season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — the acclaimed, Emmy-winning comedy from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, which will soon return for its fifth and final season.

The actor, who has also been seen on CBS/Paramount+’s Evil, is represented by Brookside Artist Management and CAA.