Viola Davis Continues Chasing Oscar with a Barbara Jordan Biopic

When Meryl Streep won the Academy Award for Best Actress last month, it was actually an upset. Sure Streep is the most nominated person in the history of the awards, but Viola Davis was actually the odds-on favorite to win for her performance in The Help. Now it appears the actress is headed back down the road to Oscar because Variety reports she’ll star in a biopic of Barbara Jordan, one of the most important women of the Civil Rights movement. Davis joins Tom Hardy as an actor set to make her feature producing debut in a film she’ll star in, producing alongside veteran TV director Paris Barclay, who will also direct the film. Amusingly, the writer of this project shares the same first name as the director – Paris Qualles will take a crack at the script, and the thematic subject matter sounds like a good match since he’s written …