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T.I. to star in Roots remake for A&E

T.I. has been casted for A&E Networks’ Roots remake. T.I. will be featured in the finale episode of the four-part miniseries. He will be playing Cyrus, a strong willed slave who fights for his freedom alongside the Union Army and against the Confederacy. Other cast additions to the Roots reboot are James Purefoy, Mekhi Phifer, Matthew Goode, Lane Garrison, Emayatzy Corinealdi and G. Hannelius. The additions join a cast that includes Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anika Noni Rose, Chad L. Coleman, Erica Tazel, Derek Luke, Regé-Jean Page and Kirby. Roots is currently filming in Louisiana and is set to premiere in 2016. The original Roots aired on ABC in 1977 and is based off of Alex Haley’s 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The original received 37 Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. The remake is set to be an eight-hour, four night reimagining that will be simulcast across the network portfolio on A&E, History, and Lifetime. Bruce Beresford, Phillip Noyce, Mario Van Peebles and Thomas Carter are the four directors. Questlove will serve as the executive music producer. Will Packer, Toberoff, Marc Wolper, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal are executive producers, and LeVar Burton and Korin Huggins are co-executive producers. T.I.'s acting credits are well-known. He appeared on Showtime's House of Lies and Boss on Starz, the Entourage movie, Marvel's Ant-Man, Get Hard and has his own VH1 reality series that just wrapped production on its fifth season. By Devon Pyne for RAPstation.com