HBO's Clarence Thomas 'Confirmation' film shooting in Atlanta

By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Wednesday June 3, 2015

Anyone who was alive in the fall of 1991 couldn't get away from the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings to become a Supreme Court judge.

What began as an issue of whether he was qualified soon devolved into a soap opera featuring Anita Hill, former aide to Thomas at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In a leaked statement, she accused him of sexual harassment in 1981, leading to a national debate over male-female relationships in the workplace. She then testified on live TV. (You can re-live some of the details here, including her accusation that Thomas brought up that infamous Coke can with pubic hair on it. Thomas at the time called the media feeding frenzy a "high-tech lynching.")

Thomas was ultimately confirmed by Congress and has been a Supreme Court judge ever since.

Now HBO is producing a film called "Confirmation" to chronicle those hearings. Naturally, it's set in Washington D.C. but will be shot in Atlanta. The film is in pre-production and is set to start soon. A casting notice for extras was recently posted.

Kerry Washington, best known D.C. operative Olivia Pope on ABC's "Scandal," is set to play Hill during her hiatus from the show. Wendell Pierce ("The Wire," "Treme") has been cast as Thomas. Other names on the docket include Greg Kinnear as Joe Biden, who presided over the hearings, and Jennifer Hudson as an aide to Thomas.

UPDATE: Monday, June 8, 2015: More casting confirmations from Deadline.com: Erika Christensen ("Parenthood") plays  Shirley Weigand, Anita's fellow law professor and friend. Cobie Smulders ("How I Met Your Mother") is Harriet Grant, Chief Counsel, Judiciary Committee Nominations Unit, for the committee's chairman.