Janelle Monae is set to star in and produce an adaptation of Tanya Smith's heist memoir.

The 39-year-old actress will play the con artist — who was convicted of bank and wire fraud — in the upcoming adaptation of her memoir Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System - and Pocketed $40 Million.

Janelle will actually produce the project through her company Wondaland Pictures, while Tanya will serve as an executive producer on the film.

Tanya started defrauding banks as a teenager and she was eventually making millions through hacking financial systems.

Tanya managed to evade the police for years, before she was ultimately cornered by the FBI. However, the authorities refused to believe that she could pull off such sophisticated crimes.

According to a synopsis of the new film, the FBI thought that "these are not the kind of crimes black people are smart enough to commit".

Tanya is now a free woman, after successfully organising her own legal defence, and she has even emerged as an advocate for prison reform and racial justice.

Tanya detailed her remarkable journey in Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System - and Pocketed $40 Million, her 2024 heist memoir.

Rights to the book have now been acquired by Universal Pictures, which is set to adapt the memoir into a movie.

Ryan Jones, Universal's senior ice-president of production development, and Tony Ducret, the director of development, are set to oversee the project on behalf of the studio.

Meanwhile, Janelle has enjoyed significant success as a singer and as an actress, starring in movies such as Moonlight and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

She previously explained how she balances her different passions in life.

The Hollywood star told Variety: "I look at myself as a magician. I try to make magic with whatever I touch. That requires hard work, that requires a certain amount of focus and attention to whatever it is that I'm doing.

"So if I'm doing a film, I wouldn't try to write an album at the same time. I need to have the mental headspace to stay fully committed to whatever role I agreed to do.

"And I consider myself a storyteller. Music is a lot more personal, because I'm drawing from stories of who I am, and what has happened to me and where I am in the world.

"With film, you're doing what you can for that character. But for the most part, you're bringing to life a story that someone else has written. There's not as much control. That's good for me, but also can be nerve-racking — because I don't get that final cut on a film or TV show."

Source: Bang