One Life to Live alum Tika Sumpter (ex-Layla Williamson) has earned some major successes since leaving Llanview in 2011, and her latest achievement is one of her most exciting yet: HBO has picked up her new project Trader for development, and she is set to executive produce the series and will likely also star in it.
Deadline reports that the drama, written by Sonya Winton and Jonathan Kidd, is a contemporary reimagining of the Robin Hood saga told through the perspective of a half-Nigerian and half-Black American female, Adefolke Girabaldi (a role earmarked for Sumpter). Adefolk is said to be "an investing wunderkind and trading forecast prodigy on Wall Street" who "wields her billion-dollar hedge fund as a sword to eviscerate predatory corporations that exploit the poor, all while navigating the unscrupulous world of the Girabaldi family who are the center of New York City's black aristocracy where money, privilege, and racism intersect in sometimes insidious ways."
Says Sumpter of the project: "Was inspired, created something, they saw me. Thank you @hbo. Let's get this team #Trader."
Was inspired, created something, they saw me. Thank you @hbo. Let's get this team #Trader. https://t.co/zIOOQwl831
- Tika Sumpter (@iamtikasumpter) October 26, 2018
Sumpter starred on OLTL from 2006 to 2011 and later went on to star in TV series like Gossip Girl, The Game, and The Haves and Have Nots. She can be seen starring in David Lowery's The Old Man & the Gun opposite Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, and Sissy Spacek and will next be seen in Tyler Perry's Nobody's Fool as well as Joe Chappelle's political thriller An Acceptable Loss, opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. Sumpter recently wrapped production on Jeff Fowler's live-action/animation hybrid film Sonic the Hedgehog, starring alongside James Marsden and Jim Carrey.
What do you think about HBO picking up Sumpter's series Trader? What are your thoughts on the premise of the "modern Robin Hood" drama? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
