Netflix’s adaptation of the weird and wonderful Gerard Way-Gabriel Bá comic series Umbrella Academy already had a pretty great-sounding cast. But it just got even better with the addition of R&B icon Mary J. Blige.
Netflix has announced that Blige—coming off the back of her Oscar-nominated acting and singing performances for Mudbound—will be joining the series as a regular. She’ll be playing Cha Cha, one half of a psychotic pair of masked, time-traveling assassins in the original comic, tasked with eliminating fellow time-traveler and Academy member 00.05, a.k.a. “The Boy,” who will be played in the show by Aidan Gallagher.
The casting call describes Cha Cha—who was male in the comics, and went around murdering people while donning a cartoonish blue bear mask—as someone who “thinks of herself as a ‘pain artist,’” and “doesn’t care for people,” except for her partner in time-travel murder-crime, Hazel. Hazel will also be a character on the series, but no casting announcements have been made so far. But either way, it’s time to get very excited about seeing Mary J. Blige play a crazy assassin in the future. Umbrella Academy is set to hit Netflix next year.
[THR]