Cuba Gooding Jr., whose Oscar-winning breakout role was a flashy football player in “Jerry Maguire,” will play O.J. Simpson in an FX miniseries.
The cable channel on Tuesday announced that the actor, recently seen in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” will play the NFL star in “American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” about Simpson’s 1995 murder trial. The show is meant to launch an anthology series from producer Ryan Murphy in the vein of his FX hit “American Horror Story,” even borrowing one of its stars, Sarah Paulson, to play prosecutor Marcia Clark.
Based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book “The Run of His Life,” the miniseries will begin with an installment written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the writing team behind “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Man on the Moon.” Murphy, whose other credits include “Glee” and “The Normal Heart,” will direct. Production begins early next year in Los Angeles.
