Ashley Thomas tapped to star in new Hulu family drama Black Cake

Them’s Ashley Thomas will soon tackle a very different kind of horror onscreen. The actor has been tapped to play the male lead in Hulu’s upcoming family drama Black Cake, per Deadline.

Based on the novel by Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake follows a family against the epic backdrop of multiple generations, multiple countries, and a murder mystery. The story takes place across Jamaica, Rome, Scotland, England, and Southern California.

The multi-generational series begins in the late 1960s, when a runaway bride named Covey (Don’t Make Me Go’s Mia Isaac) disappears from the Jamaican coast after the mysterious murder of her soon-to-be-husband. Locals at the time believe Covey to be either a fugitive or dead. It isn’t until fifty years later, when a California widow named Eleanor Bennett succumbs to cancer and leaves behind a flash drive for her two estranged adult children, Benny and Byron, that more of Covey’s story comes to light. As the next generation of Bennetts learn more about their mother’s past, and the mystery surrounding Covey, the seemingly disconnected threads of Black Cake begin to weave together.

Thomas joins the cast alongside already-announced principal actors Isaac and Adrienne Warren, who will play Benny Bennett. Deadline says Thomas will play Byron Bennett, a brilliant ocean scientist with a luminous future and Eleanor’s other child. Byron’s mother is his top priority before and after her death, and when she tasks him with carrying out her last wishes, Byron begrudgingly reunites with Benny (and unwittingly leaps down the rabbit hole of family discovery).

Women Of The Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar wrote and created the series, which Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment will produce. Zetna Fuentes of This Is Us will direct the pilot episode, replacing previously-announced Andrew Dosunmu.

Black Cake hasn’t yet received a premiere date, but has received a straight-to-series order from Hulu.