Ruth Negga Lands Role Of Tulip In DC’s Preacher TV Series

Actress Ruth Negga has become the first officially announced cast member of ‘Preacher,’ taking on the role of Tulip O’Hare in the TV adaptation of the highly acclaimed yet equally controversial DC/Vertigo comic book series.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are writing and directing the pilot episode, bringing Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s twisted tale of a Texan preacher on a mission to literally find God to the screen for the first time.

Several earlier attempts to bring ‘Preacher’ to film or TV have failed, dating back to when the comic was first published in the late 1990s. Most notably Sam Mendes was briefly attached to direct a movie prior to making ‘Skyfall.’

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Negga will already be familiar to some comic book movie and TV fans for her role as Raina in Marvel’s ‘Agents of SHIELD.’ Other viewers may remember her performance as Shirley Bassey in TV biopic ‘Shirley.’ She has also appeared in TV’s ‘Misfits,’ ‘World War Z’ and ‘12 Years A Slave.’

Negga will also star in the upcoming ‘Warcraft.’ alongside Dominic Cooper - incidentally, her real-life significant other - who is rumoured to be the top contender for ‘Preacher’s lead role Jesse Custer, although his casting has not been confirmed.

Her casting in ‘Preacher’ does highlight that Rogen, Goldberg and their collaborator Sam Catlin (’Breaking Bad’) are not being too strict about following the source material to the letter, as the Irish-Ethiopian actress is taking on a role which was originally written as a white blonde American woman.

Still, word is that aside from the change of ethnicity, the live-action Tulip should be very much in tune with her comic book counterpart, and the character description printed by Deadline would seem to confirm this:

Declared “Jesse’s former and only true love,” Tulip is colourfully surmised as “a volatile, action-packed, sexified force of nature, a capable, unrepentant criminal with a love of fashion and ability to construct helicopter-downing bazookas out of coffee cans and corn shine who’s not afraid to steal, kill or corn cob-stab her way out of a bad situation.”

On board as executive producers alongside Rogen, Goldberg and Catlin are James Weaver, Neal Moritz, Vivian Cannon, Ori Marmur, Ken Levin, Jason Netter and ‘Preacher’s creators Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.

The pilot episode is being produced for US network AMC, home of ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Breaking Bad,’ although it is not yet confirmed that it will go to series.

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Picture Credit: ABC/Marvel, Getty Images, DC/Vertigo