Our first look at Lee Daniels’ new movie ‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’ is here

There’s been a lot of buzz about the upcoming Billie Holiday biopic since it was announced, and today we finally got our first glimpse at The United States vs. Billie Holiday, helmed by Precious director Lee Daniels and starring newcomer Andra Day.Vanity Fair has just published some incredible on-set photographs of Day as Holiday and Moonlight breakout star Trevante Rhodes as Jimmy Fletcher, an undercover FBI agent sent to investigate her, but who falls under her charms instead. Look at the sumptuous period costumes. The lush hair and makeup. The ornate set design. Release date February 21, 2021 cannot come soon enough.

 

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Exclusive: Your first look at Lee Daniels's new film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, is here. In her feature acting debut, Grammy-nominated artist Andra Day will play Lady Day herself in a dramatization of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ quest to imprison Holiday on drug charges as retribution for her singing political songs like “Strange Fruit” and her dedication to integrating audiences. Daniels, the director behind the Oscar-winning Precious, cast Day—a smoky soul singer whose voice has a natural Holiday-esque bent—in 2018 after being blown away by her audition. “She wasn’t acting,” he says. “She was just baring her soul.” Read more about the #USvsBillieHoliday at the link in bio.

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Billie Holiday was an incomparable swing, jazz and blues singer in the early part of the 20^th century, making waves with such classic and finger-snapping tunes like “God Bless The Child,” “Miss Brown To You,” “The Very Thought of You,” and of course, “Strange Fruit,” the haunting song of the brutalization and lynching of Black Americans in the south.  So you can understand why this film is already generating some serious buzz. In fact, it was Holiday’s immense talent and tragic life story that inspired Andra Day from a young age.She tells Vanity Fair that hearing Holiday’s music at the age of 11 was transformative. “I was like, What?! This is nothing like Whitney Houston!” she laughed. “It really transformed me as a singer.”[video_embed id='2046075']RELATED: Zendaya in talks to star as Ronnie Spector in new biopic[/video_embed]Described as a “smokey soul singer,” Daniels told the magazine he cast Day because her innate talent and natural taking to the character. “She wasn’t acting,” he told VF of her audition. “She was just baring her soul.”The IMDb synopsis for the upcoming period piece say the plot, “follows Holiday during her career as she is targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by Black Federal Agent Jimmy Fletcher, with whom she had a tumultuous affair.”

Exclusive: Your first look at Lee Daniels's The United States vs. Billie Holiday—starring Andra Day—is here: https://t.co/qgTvnNRu9L pic.twitter.com/Q2sQhkh3LZ

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) November 5, 2020

The story will also delve into her fight against the federal drug charges, her occasional romances with women, and her love of the finer things in life such as fur and diamonds. Daniels, who admits he struggled with drug addiction early in his life, found that the script by screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks resonated with him on a personal level.The film also features Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, and Tyler James Williams.[video_embed id='2036305']Before you go: Madonna to co-write and direct her own biopic[/video_embed]