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Octavia Spencer will portray God in 'The Shack' movie adaptation

Spencer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the movie 'The Help.' 

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Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP
Octavia Spencer attends the 2015 Los Angeles Premiere of 'Black or White.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

"Snowpiercer" actress Octavia Spencer may be taking on a big role.

According to Buzzfeed, Spencer has signed on to portray God in a movie adaptation of the 2007 Christian book "The Shack" by William Paul Young. 

"I’m excited and terrified all at the same time,” the actress told Buzzfeed. "I mean, Morgan Freeman has played God how many times? And he’s amazing in every incarnation of God. I’m playing a manifestation of God. But I also know, going into the role, from my upbringing as a Christian, that God made us in his form, so I will be playing God in human form."

The movie is being directed by Stuart Hazeldine, who previously helmed the 2009 film "Exam."

"Shack" centers on a man who receives an invitation from what appears to be God to visit a shack where, years earlier, evidence was discovered that convinced authorities the man's daughter had been murdered. 

Spencer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for starring in another book-to-movie adaptation – that of Kathryn Stockett's bestseller "The Help."

An unusual-for-the-movies depiction of God was seen in theaters earlier this year. In this past December's "Exodus: Gods and Kings," which told the story of Moses (played by Christian Bale), director Ridley Scott cast a young child as God. New York Times writers Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes described this portrayal by 11-year-old actor Isaac Andrews as "stern-eyed, impatient, at times vaguely angelic and at times 'Children of the Corn' terrifying." "I want to avoid the clichés," Scott said of the casting decision.

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