After figuring out all the important stuff like erasing all mention of John Constantine’s bisexuality and getting his Chantix prescription filled, the producers of NBC’s Constantine have moved on to other minor details, such as casting the series’ main antagonist.
Relative unknown Michael James Shaw has been given the role of Papa Midnite, the immortal voodoo priest and mob kingpin played by Djimon Hounsou in The Movie Adaptation That Must Not Be Named. In the comics, Constantine and Papa Midnite were able to put aside their magical differences occasionally in order to defeat a common enemy, but it’s not clear yet whether that dynamic will be repeated in the show.
As is often the fate of African-American actors, Shaw trained at Juilliard and the British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England, but his most mainstream role to date is as a homeless guy on The Wire. Eagle-eyed readers may also recognize him as the hero of the blaxploitation-style Mad Men parody we posted a few months back.