Adepero Oduye and Cornelius Smith Jr. are set as leads opposite Vera Farmiga in Apple TV+’s limited series Five Days at Memorial.
The series comes from John Ridley, Carlton Cuse and ABC Signature and is based Sheri Fink’s nonfiction book of the same name. Ridley and Cuse are also writing, directing, and executive producing the series.
Five Days at Memorial chronicles the first five days in a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. When the floodwaters rose, the power failed and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers were forced to make life-and-death decisions that haunted them for years to come.
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Oduye will play Karen Wynn, the nurse in charge of the intensive care unit. Wynn is also the head of its ethics committee at the New Orleans hospital. Smith will play Dr. Bryant King, an internist and one of the few doctors of color at the hospital, who finds himself very much in the middle of the crisis.
Farmiga plays Dr. Anna Pou, the doctor on duty at Memorial when the storm hit. Fink will serve as a producer on the project.
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Smith starred as Marcus Walker on Scandal. He also recurred in God Friended Me, Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, and Manhunt.
Oduye, has starred in Pariah, 12 Years a Slave, The Big Short, Widows, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.