Directed by one-time Broadway performer Joseph Sargent ("Miss Evers' Boys"), the screenwork is penned by Peter Silverman and Todd Philips.
Set mainly in and around Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University in the 1940s, "Something The Lord Made" follows the story of an ambitious white surgeon (Rickman) and his gifted black lab technician (Def) who defied the racial tensions in the Jim Crow era and pioneered the field of heart surgery.
Kyra Sedgwick (Ah, Wilderness!, The Exonerated), Mary Stuart Masterson (Nine, "Fried Green Tomatoes"), Charles S. Dutton (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) and Gabrielle Union ("Deliver Us from Eva") also star in the movie.
Rickman, who was Tony Award-nominated for his Broadway turns in Private Lives and Les Liaisons Dangereuses, won a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for the title role in HBO's "Rasputin." He is known for his screen roles in the "Harry Potter" series, "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Sense and Sensibility" and "Truly, Madly, Deeply," "Love Actually," "Galaxy Quest," "Judas Kiss," "Dogma" and "Die Hard."
Rapper Mos Def, who appeared in Suzan Lori Parks' Topdog/Underdog and Fucking A, has found success as an actor, also appearing in such films as "Bamboozled," "Monster's Ball," "The Italian Job" and "Brown Sugar." He hosts the HBO series "Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry," which served as the basis for the Broadway incarnation. The executive producers for "Something the Lord Made" are Robert Cort and his partners David Madden and Eric Hetzel. Producers include Mike Drake and Julian Krainin. Andrea Kalin, Dr. Koco Eaton and Dr. J. Alex Haller, Jr. served as consultants on the film.
Recent HBO Films presentations have included the screen versions of the Tectonic Theatre's The Laramie Project and Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Ruben Santiago-Hudson's Lackawanna Blues is currently in production under the direction of George C. Wolfe.
"Something the Lord Made" debuts on HBO May 30 at 9 PM (ET) and continues to play through June. Check your local listings. For more information, visit the HBO website at www.hbo.com/films.
