Here is the Ocean’s 8 prequel we deserve: Tessa Thompson will play iconic jewelry thief Doris Payne in a new biopic. Per Variety, the tone of the movie will be somewhere between Catch Me If You Can and The Thomas Crown Affair. Thompson will star in and produce the action-drama with Codeblack Films.
Beginning in her 20s, Payne entered department stores asking to see an array of jewels, eventually pocketing a few of them when the sales clerk wasn’t looking. She has admitted to using 20 aliases, ten social security numbers, and nine dates of birth. Payne, now 87, was the subject of a 2013 documentary titled The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne. “I don’t dictate what happens when I walk in the store. The people in charge dictate what happens with me when I walk in the store,†Payne told the Associated Press in 2016. “I don’t tell a person in the store I want to see something that costs $10,000. They make those decisions based on how I present myself and how I look.â€