Michael Kenneth Williams has joined the cast of HBO’s Lovecraft Country. Based on the 2016 novel from Matt Ruff, the series follows Atticus Freeman as he joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father.
This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback. Williams is set to play Montrose Freeman, Atticus’s father. Described as hard headed and secretive, he’s always believed you can’t live in a fantasy world, which is why he despises his son’s pulp novels. Most of the books on his shelf are nonfiction, history, and political theory.
Williams has a longstanding relationship with HBO, having starred in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Bessie, and The Night Of. He has also starred in Sundance’s Hap & Leonard and ABC’s When We Rise, and is set to appear in Ava DuVernay’s Central Park Five.