Zendaya joins A White Lie

Actress Zendaya will produce and star in the thriller A White Lie, in which she will essay the role of the first African-American woman to graduate from Vassar College.

The project is based on Karin Tanabe’s book The Gilded Years, which tells the true story of Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African-American woman who was the descendant of slaves and passed as white so she could attend Vassar during the 1890s. Hemmings is pulled into her elite world where she is treated as a wealthy, educated white woman who finds romance with a Harvard student.

Zendaya, whose full name is Zendaya Coleman, recently starred as the female lead opposite Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming. She will next be seen opposite Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron in The Greatest Showman as trapeze artist Anne Wheeler. —IANS