It’s been a minute since Janelle Monáe last indulged in the “actor” side of her actor/musician hybrid status—give or take your interpretation of some extremely over-the-top Halloween preparations—having most recently starred on the screen in 2022 Knives Out sequel Glass Onion. Now, Monáe has decided to hop back into the fray, playing a woman who spent years defrauding millions from the United States banking system.
This is per Variety, which reports that Monáe is set to produce and star in a film adaptation of Never Saw Me Coming, the 2024 memoir by Tanya Smith. Smith, if you haven’t heard of her, is what might be best described as a character: An incredibly talented con artist who started out as a Robin Hood type—committing bank fraud and sending the money to the local poor of her native Minneapolis—before embarking on even bolder schemes, ultimately making off with some $40 million in pilfered loot. It’s not hard to see why Monáe might be drawn to her as a character: This is a woman who, in her own account, executed an 8-month prison escape with little more than a disguise and a confident smile, and who sometimes sent the FBI taunting letters just to thumb her nose at authorities who thought a young Black woman couldn’t be the mastermind behind complicated financial crimes. She does not lack for confidence or flair, is the point.
Monáe is producing the film through her Wondaland Pictures production company, with Smith—who successfully argued for her own release in 1999, after being previously hit with one of the most massive prison sentences in white collar crime history—on board as an executive producer. In press releases for the film, the movie is being described as a blend between a heist thriller and “a powerful examination of systemic prejudice and economic inequality.”
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