Kevin Costner, seen here with co-star Joan Allen in 2005’s ‘The Upside of Anger’

Kevin Costner’s indie film Black and White starts filming Monday in New Orleans, and we finally know who is playing the final leading role. According to Deadline, Costner and fellow Oscar winner Octavia Spencer (The Help) will be joined by Andre Holland, best known for his recent turn as sportswriter Wendell Smith in the Jackie Robinson biopic 42. Holland will be playing a recent widower, a drug addict with whom Costner’s character (the father to Holland’s late wife) will contend with for custody of Holland’s biracial daughter/Costner’s granddaughter. Also in the picture is the Holland’s mother (Spencer), the child’s grandmother. As the title suggests, race is to play a major role in the story, exacerbated by Costner’s character blaming Holland’s for the death of their daughter/wife.

Andre Holland as Wendell Smith in ’42’

Familial grief seems to be a theme for writer/director Mike Binder, whose most recent work includes The Upside of Anger (which also starred Costner), about the family of a suddenly-disappeared father/husband, and Reign Over Me, featuring a surprisingly effective Adam Sandler in a drama about a man (Don Cheadle) who tries to help his college roommate (Sandler) through the loss of his wife and child in the September 11th World Trade Center attacks.

Also joining the cast are Jennifer Ehle, who played the female agent friend to Jessica Chastain’s Maya in Zero Dark Thirty, and comedian Bill Burr (The Heat, Date Night). Mpho Koaho (Saw III and IV and TV’s Falling Skies) also stars.

Black and White is being produced by Costner’s Treehouse Films and Binder’s Sunlight Productions.