One actress may not be enough to play Queen Latifah.
The performer and producer, born Dana Owens, has indicated that the lead role in her developing biopic could be divided among multiple performers. Speaking at a Power of Women event, Latifah said an open casting call is on the way and explained that the central challenge is finding people who can convey the different versions of her across a life and career with many chapters.
“Someone has to capture all the different sides of me, and that’s going to be a challenge to pull it off,” Latifah said. “They’re out there somewhere. It might be three people. We’ll see.”
She also joked that her life is exhausting and that the project may require “three of y’all” to handle it. The remark was lighthearted, but it points to a meaningful creative decision that remains unresolved: whether one performer will carry the part from beginning to end, or whether the film will use a group of actresses to represent separate eras.
An open casting call leaves the door wide open
An open casting call generally means a production is inviting submissions beyond a small, preselected group of established actors. In this case, it signals that the search is not necessarily limited to a single familiar name or a straightforward celebrity imitation.
Latifah’s comments suggest the filmmakers are prioritizing range over simple resemblance. That can mean several things in practice. A candidate may need the musical ability to credibly inhabit a Hip Hop artist, the acting technique to handle dramatic scenes, and the presence to portray a public figure whose work has crossed multiple entertainment spaces. It may also mean the casting team is looking for performers whose ages, voices, movement, and emotional approaches suit different stages of Owens’ story.
Nothing has been confirmed about how the potential multi-actress structure would work. It is not yet known whether the film would assign performers to chronological periods, use different actors for selected sequences, or ultimately settle on one lead. Latifah’s use of “might” is important: three actresses is a possibility under consideration, not an announced format.
Still, leaving that option open acknowledges a basic biopic problem. A film that covers a long stretch of a real person’s life asks an actor to change not only appearance, but also posture, confidence, artistic voice, relationships, and sense of self. Casting multiple leads can turn that issue into part of the storytelling design rather than asking one person to simulate every stage alone.
Related coverage includes Queen Latifah Says Her Biopic Could Need Three Actresses.
Why this role presents an unusually broad brief
Latifah’s point was not simply that there is a lot of material to fit into a feature film. She described the challenge as capturing her “different sides.” That distinction matters. A biopic can be organized as a sequence of events, but a convincing performance also needs to communicate how its subject changes between those events.
For casting purposes, “range” is the ability to make those changes feel intentional and believable. It is more than altering a hairstyle, wardrobe, or age makeup. A performer must give audiences a reason to recognize continuity between early and later versions of the same person, while also showing that time and experience have had an effect.
Using multiple actors is one possible answer. It could allow each performer to specialize in a particular period without forcing the film to depend entirely on artificial aging or a single performance spanning dramatically different life phases. The tradeoff is continuity: the actresses would need to create a shared sense of character so the audience sees one person rather than a series of disconnected portrayals.
That is why Latifah’s framing makes sense as more than a casting gimmick. The approach could give the production freedom, but it would demand careful coordination in performance, writing, costuming, editing, and direction. The project would need to decide which qualities are essential to Dana Owens in every era, then ensure those qualities remain legible when a new actress takes over.
The project’s production team is already in place
The Queen Latifah biopic was first announced in 2024 as the opening film in a planned series centered on major Hip Hop artists. Flavor Unit Entertainment is producing with Westbrook Studios and Jesse Collins Entertainment. HarbourView Equity Partners is financing the planned slate.
Latifah and her longtime business partner Shakim Compere are producing for Flavor Unit. Will Smith is also among the producers through Westbrook. Those credited partners give the film a foundation on the production side, even as one of its most visible on-screen decisions remains open.
Having Latifah herself involved as a producer adds an especially direct connection between the subject and the project. That does not answer every artistic question for the audience, nor does it reveal the film’s final shape. It does mean the person whose life is being dramatized is part of the production team while it works through questions such as casting.
For viewers, the open call is the clearest immediate development. For performers, it creates an opportunity to be considered for a high-profile role without the public record yet specifying a final casting breakdown, submission process, or timetable. Those details have not been announced.
What audiences should not assume yet
The discussion around three actresses should not be read as confirmation that the biopic will use three leads. There is no announced cast, no identified actresses, and no confirmed structure for dividing the role. There is also no indication of a release date in the available details.
Likewise, a multi-performer approach would not necessarily mean three equal parts. Films can use different actors for childhood, adolescence, adulthood, or more narrowly defined transitions. They can also retain one principal actor while using others for brief earlier portrayals. Latifah has only said that multiple performers, potentially three, may be needed.
That uncertainty is the story’s most compelling piece. Many biopics begin their public journey with a recognizable star already attached to play the title figure. Here, the search itself has become a central part of the project’s identity. The eventual casting will help determine whether the film presents Latifah’s journey through one performer’s transformation or through a deliberate handoff between several interpretations of the same person.
A broader music-and-screen context
The project arrives amid continued attention on artists whose careers extend well beyond one medium. A biopic has to account for how audiences know its subject: through music, public appearances, performance, business work, and the cultural memory formed around all of them. That makes the question of who can embody those dimensions particularly consequential.
Latifah’s planned film is part of a wider Hip Hop-focused slate, but it has not yet supplied the production specifics needed to judge its scope or narrative emphasis. The known facts are more modest: it was announced in 2024, it has established producing and financing partners, and an open casting call is planned.
For another current look at the overlap between major music names and televised pop-cultural events, see the planned 2026 VMAs return to Los Angeles.
The casting decision will define the film’s first impression
At this stage, the Queen Latifah biopic has a production framework and a striking creative question at its center. The film may ask one actress to cover every side of Dana Owens, or it may invite multiple actresses to collectively build that portrait. Either route will set a different expectation for the finished feature.
A single lead would place the emphasis on transformation within one performance. Multiple leads could emphasize time, reinvention, and the idea that no one moment contains the whole person. Latifah has not committed the film to either vision, but she has made clear that a conventional one-person answer may not be enough.
