America Ferrera Will Play Artist Ana Mendieta in TV Adaption of ‘Naked by the Window’

EXCLUSIVE: America Ferrera‘s hot streak continues, as the Barbie Oscar nom has been set to executive produce and star in Naked by the Window, a series adaptation of the book by Robert Katz, which has landed at Amazon MGM Studios for development following a bidding war.

Originally published in 1990, the book tells the true story of the groundbreaking Cuban artist Ana Mendieta, her formidable impact on the New York art scene, and the controversial trial of her sculptor husband, Carl Andre, for her sudden and tragic death.

Charise Castro Smith (Encanto) will write and exec produce the series, with Plan-B Entertainment also on board to executive produce.

Regarded as one of the most influential Cuban American artists of the post-WWII era, Mendieta is celebrated for her groundbreaking work in the fields of performance art, sculpture, and Land art. Known for works examining themes of identity, feminism, and the relationship between the human body and the earth, she saw the latter take particular focus in her well-known “Silueta” series, juxtaposing her silhouette with natural elements like earth, rocks, and fire. Mendieta died in 1985, when she fell from Andre’s 34th-floor apartment. She was 36.

An Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award winner, Ferrera is currently enjoying a career high, on the heels of an Oscar nomination for her role as Gloria in Warner Bros’ cultural phenomenon, Barbie. Currently developing her feature directorial debut I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter with Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures, Ferrera was also this week set to star opposite Matthew McConaughey in Paul Greengrass’s Apple drama The Lost Bus, about California’s deadly Camp Fire of 2018. Also coming up for her is Pixar’s Elio, in which she voices a key role.

Best known for cowriting and codirecting Disney’s Oscar-winning animated feature Encanto, Smith has also served on the writing and producing teams of series including Sweetbitter, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Exorcist, prior to that writing on Devious Maids.

The Paramount musical drama Bob Marley: One Love, overseen by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner, and produced by Plan-B Entertainment, is currently in theaters. Among Plan-B Entertainment’s upcoming films are Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Apple/Sony thriller Wolfs starring Pitt and George Clooney, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, Joseph Kosinski’s Pitt-led Formula One film for Apple, and Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, among others. The company also produces the Netflix sci-fi series 3 Body Problem from Game of Thrones‘ David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo, which bows on the platform on March 21.

Ferrera is repped by CAA, Hamilton Hodell in the UK, and Peikoff Mahan; Smith by UTA and McKuin Frankel Whitehead.