Mahershala Ali returning to HBO to play legendary boxer Jack Johnson in a limited series

Deadline

The two-time Oscar winner and former True Detective star has signed on to play the legendary boxer in Unruly, a six-part limited series based on the 2004 Ken Burns PBS documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. Ali has previously said that playing Johnson, who became the first African-American heavyweight champion in 1908 amid the Jim Crow era, was his "dream role." Ali played Johnson on stage in 2000 in one of his first acting jobs: The Great White Hope. Unruly is described as "an unapologetically Black, no-holds-barred telling of Jack Johnson, the world’s first Black Heavyweight Boxing Champion," per Deadline. "This bold exploration depicts the champion’s rise to athletic greatness and the costs he paid for his skin and defiance, which created a blueprint for Black resistance in every justice movement for generations to come." Unruly will be written by former Shameless writer Dominique Morisseau, with Tom Hanks, Burns and Beau Willimon -- whom Ali worked with on House of Cards -- serving as executive producers.