The most recent Pittsburgh-filmed Hollywood project with potential to become an Academy Awards darling happens to share a lot of DNA with the last movie filmed in Western Pennsylvania to take home a few statues on Oscars night.
It has been pretty clear for a while now that Netflix was intent on positioning “Rustin” — its biopic of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin that was largely shot in the Pittsburgh area almost two years ago — for an awards season push. Netflix’s plan came into even clearer focus on Tuesday, when it revealed via a glossy Vanity Fair first-look feature that “Rustin” is scheduled to release in select theaters Nov. 3 before beginning its global streaming run Nov. 17.
“Rustin” is being shepherded by Higher Grounds Productions, which was founded by Barack and Michelle Obama in 2018 “to tell powerful stories that entertain, inform and inspire,” according to its website. The film brought director George C. Wolfe back to Pittsburgh following his stint helming a locally filmed Netflix adaptation of the August Wilson play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” that took home two trophies at the 2021 Academy Awards.
Colman Domingo was also back in town starring as the titular Rustin alongside fellow “Ma Rainey” alumni Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph and Michael Potts as Cleveland Robinson. The cast of “Rustin” also features Chris Rock as Roy Wilkins, Audra McDonald as Ella Baker, CCH Pounder as Anna Hedgeman, Bill Irwin as A.J. Muste, Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mahalia Jackson, Adrienne Warren as Claudia Taylor and Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King Jr.
“The architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world has ever known,” reads the “Rustin” plot description on Netflix’s press site. “He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired. And he did not back down. He made history, and in turn, he was forgotten.”
While “Rustin” was filming in Pittsburgh, Atlanta-based Rose Locke Casting sought as many locally based extras as it could find to re-create something resembling the March on Washington for Netflix audiences.
“The cause, the responsibility, the task is so monumental,” Wolfe told Vanity Fair’s Chris Murphy in an interview conducted before the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike officially commenced last week. “It is going to take all that I have and all that everyone that I know has, to pull this off. ... He did this in seven weeks.”
Domingo also talked to Vanity Fair prior to the strike about being an openly gay actor and playing a gay civil rights icon like Rustin.
“We're not in the center of our own stories,” Domingo said of queer Black men. “That's the truth. ... I can access things in a unique way and specifically for the character, of course, but there is a fearlessness to find that vulnerability and bring that part of myself to it as well. I don't have to reach so far outside of my experience, but I can pull from within.
“It's being guided by someone who's also an openly gay, openly queer Black male as well,” Domingo continued, referring to Wolfe. “I think that is very unique.”
In addition to “Rustin,” Barack Obama also was part of Netflix’s labor-centric “Working: What We Do All Day” docuseries that was partially filmed in Pittsburgh. Netflix also recently shot the Lee Daniels-directed horror film “The Deliverance” throughout the Pittsburgh region. That title is still awaiting a formal release date.
Other upcoming Pittsburgh-filmed projects to keep on your radar include Amazon Freevee’s season two of “American Rust” and “Drive-Away Dolls,” the Ethan Coen-helmed queer road trip comedy set to hit theaters on Sept. 22.
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: July 18, 2023, 3:23 p.m.