Tag Archives: Red Tails

Tristan Mack Wilds to Star in Universal’s Music-Competition Feature Comedy “Praise This”

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Tristan Mack Wilds is ready for a little praise (this).

The 32-year-old half–Afro-Dominican American actor has been cast in Universal Pictures’ film Praise This, starring Chloe Bailey.

Tristan Mack WildsAlso signing on for roles include Anjelika Washington, Quavo, Druski, Koryn Hawthorne and Jekalyn Carr.

Other new cast members include newcomers Kiara Iman Heffner and Ilario Grant, Birgundi Baker, Loren Lott, Crystal Renee Hayslett, Cocoa Brown, Vanessa Fraction and Kountry Wayne.

Praise This is a music-competition feature comedy set in the world of youth choirs, announced earlier this year as one of three Universal films coming to Peacock in 2023.

Tina Gordon is directing, having penned the latest draft of the script, which was based off an original idea by The Story Company.

Earlier drafts were written by Camilla Blackett and Brandon Broussard, Hudson Obayuwana and Jana Savage—the trio otherwise known as Murder Ink.

The film falls under Will Packer Productions’ first-look deal with Universal.

Production kicked off in Atlanta in June.

Wilds currently stars in the Apple TV+ series Swagger. Past credits include the Spike Lee miniseries Miracle’s Boys, the critically-acclaimed HBO series The Wire, the award-winning feature Half Nelson, The Secret Life of Bees and George Lucas’ Red Tails.

Wilds to Star in Indie Drama “Fruitvale”

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Tristan Wilds and Melonie Diaz will be working with an Oscar-winning actress in the near future.

The 22-year-old part-Dominican American actor and 27-year-old Puerto Rican American actress have joined the cast of Fruitvale, an indie drama about a true-life police shooting being produced by Forest Whitaker.

Tristan Wilds

Ryan Coogler will make his feature debut writing and directing the film, which comes in the wake of the controversy surrounding the February 26 death of Trayvon Martin, a black teenager shot and killed by a local neighborhood watch officer in Florida.

Chronicle’s Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer, who won Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Oscars for her role in The Help, are already on board for Fruitvale, which tells the story of Oscar Grant, a young black man detained on New Year’s Day 2009 by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police and shot in the back and killed. The event was captured by many cell phone cameras, with the ensuing trial and its verdict causing protests and riots.

Melonie Diaz

Wilds will play Grant’s best friend while Diaz will appear as the mother of his young child.

Wilds previously worked with Jordan on the George Lucas-produced World War II aerial war movie Red Tails. He’s also one of the stars of the CW’s 90210.

Diaz has guest-starred on several TV shows, including Person of Interest and CSI: Miami. She’s also appeared in the films Nothing Like the Holidays and Hamlet 2.