Tiffany Haddish is running back to the big screen.
The 41-year-old actress has been tapped to star as Florence Griffith Joyner — also known as “Flo-Jo” — in an upcoming biopic, according to Variety. In addition to playing the Olympic track and field star, Haddish will also produce the project.
“I am looking forward to telling Flo-Jo’s story the way it should be told,” Haddish said in a statement. “My goal with this film is making sure that younger generations know my ‘she-ro’ Flo-Jo, the fastest woman in the world to this day, existed.
Mega Agency
“My Heart is so full Right now! I can’t even explain how hard I am going to work to honor Her Legacy!” Haddish said Thursday.
Griffith Joyner represented Team USA’s track and field team in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. She took home the gold medal in the 100 m, 200 m and 4×100 m races at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, where she famously ran in one-legged catsuits.
Many of the records that Joyner set in the 1988 Olympics have yet to be broken, per the International Olympic Committee.
A decade later, the legendary athlete died in her sleep at age 38 from an epileptic seizure that caused her to suffocate.
For the forthcoming film, which has yet to be given an official title, Game1 Co-CEO’s Basil Iwanyk and Greg Economou will serve as producers, alongside Melanie Clark of Haddish’s She Ready Productions. Jonathan Fuhrman of Thunder Road Pictures will serve as an executive producer.
Similarly, Griffith Joyner’s widower and former coach, Al Joyner, will serve as a producer and creative consultant on the feature. According to the report, he has already started training Haddish for the role.
“I am so elated to team up with game1 and Tiffany Haddish on this project,” Joyner, 61, said. “Working with Tiffany has been a great pleasure – she is incredibly dedicated, focused, and committed to portraying the spirit of Florence accurately, whose legacy of making a difference in the world will live on for generations to come.”
