EXCLUSIVE: Sanaa Lathan has joined the cast of Native Son, the big-screen adaptation of Richard Wright’s iconic book in the works at A24, which made a worldwide rights deal last month for the project. Ashton Sanders, Margaret Qualley, Nick Robinson and Bill Camp are already aboard the pic, which has a screenplay adapted to the present day by Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and is being directed by Rashid Johnson.

Lathan will play Trudy Thomas, a widow who is doing her best to raise three children in a small and cramped but tidy Chicago apartment. When her new boyfriend helps arrange a job interview for her eldest son Bigger (Sanders) to work as a chauffeur for a local real estate magnate, a chain of events is triggered that will have devastating consequences for both families.

The film was developed and will be produced by Bow and Arrow Entertainment’s Matthew Perniciaro and Michael Sherman.

Lathan, whose recent credits include CBS Films’ American Assassin and Fox’s Shots Fired, is next up in the Netflix original film Nappily Ever After and has a recurring role on Season 4 of Showtime’s The Affair.

She is repped by ICM Partners and attorney Stephen Barnes.