(L to R) David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in ‘The X-Files’. Photo: 20th Century Fox Television.
‘The X-Files’, originally created by Chris Carter, aired on Fox from 1993-2001 before being revived at the network for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018. It starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who investigate cases that lean towards the paranormal and otherwise unusual.
Two movies were made based on the original show, but there’s no word yet on whether either Duchovny or Anderson will appear in any capacity. As for the new potential series’ logline? “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Deadwyler and Patel will be playing a new original characters –– we’re assuming at this point they’ll be the main agents.
Coogler is aboard to write and direct the pilot, but should the show go to series, ‘The Copenhagen Test’s Jennifer Yale will be overseeing it.
Coogler, an avowed fan of the supernatural, has spoken previously to Variety about his feelings for the show:
“Like my relationship with ‘Rocky’ with my dad, ‘The X-Files’ is one of those things with my mom. My mom means the world to me…so this is a big one for me. I want to do right by her and the fans. My mom has read some of the stuff I wrote for it. She’s fired up.”
Deon Cole hosts the 57th NAACP Image Awards on February 28th. Photo: Paramount+.
Preview:
‘Sinners’ took home the big prizes at the 2026 NAACP Image Awards.
‘Paradise’ and Cynthia Erivo were also among the winners.
The event took place Saturday night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
Following the difficult, insulting moments of this year’s BAFTA Awards, the NAACP Image Awards, hosted by Deon Cole, which took place Saturday night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, were a chance to balance things out.
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And Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’ proved to be the big winner, going home with 13 awards following a nomination count of 18. Star Michael B. Jordan himself won both a Best Actor award and was honored with Entertainer of the Year.
The ceremony also paid tribute to the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, with NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson honoring the late civil rights activist, whose family was in attendance at the ceremony.
(Left) Director Ryan Cooler at the New York Premiere of ‘Sinners’. Photo: Warner Bros. (Center) David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in ‘The X-Files’. Photo: 20th Century Fox Television. (Right) Danielle Deadwyler in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
Preview:
Danielle Deadwyler will star in the new ‘X-Files’ series.
Ryan Coogler is writing the pilot and will direct it.
Jennifer Yale will be showrunner.
We’ve known for a while that ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Sinners’ director Ryan Coogler has been developing a rebooted take on cult supernatural show ‘The X-Files’ for Hulu. The show has now taken a step forward with a pilot order.
(L to R) David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in 1998’s ‘The X-Files’. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
‘The X-Files’, originally created by Chris Carter, aired on Fox from 1993-2001 before being revived at the network for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018. It starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who investigate cases that lean towards the paranormal and otherwise unusual.
Two movies were made based on the original show, but there’s no word yet on whether either Duchovny or Anderson will appear in any capacity. As for the new potential series’ logline? “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
We don’t yet know exactly how Deadwyler’s character will fit in, but we can assume she’s one of the agents.
“Like my relationship with ‘Rocky’ with my dad, ‘The X-Files’ is one of those things with my mom. My mom means the world to me…so this is a big one for me. I want to do right by her and the fans. My mom has read some of the stuff I wrote for it. She’s fired up.”
Coogler is aboard to write and direct the pilot, but should the show go to series, ‘The Copenhagen Test’s Jennifer Yale will be overseeing it.
Where else can we see Danielle Deadwyler?
Danielle Deadwyler in ’40 Acres’, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Upcoming on the small screen, she’ll appear in the new season of ‘Euphoria’ and Steve Carell series ‘Rooster’. Movie-wise, she’s attached to drama ‘The Street’ and has worked on crime comedy ‘The Chaperones’.
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ director Ryan Coogler.
Okwui Okpokwasili as the Woman in ‘The Woman in the Yard’, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Photo: Universal Pictures.
‘The Woman in the Yard’ was held back from critics until literally the night it started playing in theaters, which is usually a sign that a film is so bad that the movie studio doesn’t want any reviews going up before its release that could dampen the box office. Sometimes the studio’s fear is warranted, but at other times the reticence is baffling.
The new horror film from Blumhouse and Universal, ‘The Woman in the Yard,’ falls somewhere in between: this is a handsomely mounted and often beautifully shot movie from director Jaume Collet-Serra, whose recent output has included both a fun if silly action flick (‘Carry-On’) and a turgid superhero dud (‘Black Adam’). Collet-Serra’s early films were horror titles, including the bonkers ‘Orphan,’ and here he wrings some decidedly chilly atmosphere from the initial premise and good performances by a cast led by Danielle Deadwyler (‘The Piano Lesson’). But ‘The Woman in the Yard’ rapidly falls apart in its second half, losing coherence and sense while also trying to tell a story about sorrow and crisis. In trying to go for both genre shocks and emotional depth, it succeeds at neither.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Director Jaume Collet-Serra and Danielle Deadwyler on the set of ‘The Woman in the Yard’. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) is deep in the throes of grief, guilt, and depression following the death of her husband David (Russell Hornsby, seen in flashbacks) in a car accident that also left Ramona on crutches with a broken leg. The rural farmhouse she and David bought is falling into disrepair; Ramona hasn’t paid the electric bill so the power is out, and her teen son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) has to fire up the stove with a lighter to cook breakfast (eggs and Doritos) for his little sister Annie (Estella Kahiha) before what little food they have spoils.
Things take a darker turn when a woman (Okwui Okpokwasili), wearing a black veil and shroud-like garments, inexplicably shows up seated in a chair in their front yard. When Ramona goes outside to ask who she is, the woman replies with a question of her own: “How did I get here?” she asks dazedly. Although she refuses to identify herself or lift her veil at first, she eventually has an ominous warning for Ramona: “Today is the day,” she intones. “You called and I came.”
Tensions within the house rise as the woman seemingly draws closer, while the family dog goes missing and the inhabitants of their little chicken coop meet a grisly fate. Taylor wants to confront the woman himself, or short of that, drive to a neighbor’s house, but the car won’t start. (Why people in horror films often think that buying an isolated house with no one else around is a good idea, especially when they have kids who would maybe like to play with other local kids, always baffles us.) And then the woman gets even closer and the house itself comes under siege from her spectral presence.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra on the set of ‘The Woman in the Yard’. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Collet-Serra gets his best material out of the opening scenes of the movie, aided by strong performances from Deadwyler and the kids as a family falling apart at the seams. There’s a thick layer of dread in the air once the woman appears, and her dark presence against the bright sky and vast field outside the house is both jarring and surreal, reminiscent of similar tableaux in films like ‘The Innocents’ and ‘Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.’
But this isn’t enough material to sustain even this movie’s relatively brief (88 minutes with credits) running time. What might work on paper as a ghostly short story gets stretched to the breaking point in the second half, with Collet-Serra deploying a number of standard shocks as the script comes completely unglued. What exactly is happening? It seems pretty clear that the woman is either a supernatural or psychological manifestation of Ramona’s anguished state of mind. But if this is all psychological, then why can the kids see the woman? Why does poltergeist activity start occurring in the house?
It eventually comes around – sort of – to some revelations that lay out what might be really happening, but even though Collet-Serra and Stefanak reach for some profundity, the film has become too confused with what’s real and what isn’t to make the impact they’re aiming for. Horror doesn’t always have to be explained or knowable – that’s often what makes it frightening – but there does have to be some internal logic. ‘The Woman in the Yard’ dispenses with that. Some might call the film ambiguous; we’ll just call it incoherent.
Cast and Performances
(L to R) Taylor (Peyton Jackson), Annie (Estella Kahiha) and Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) in ‘The Woman in the Yard’, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Photo: Universal Pictures.
As with many horror movies made for a price these days, there are just five actors in ‘The Woman in the Yard.’ We never see anyone else or even get a sense of where this family is living. We know that Ramona is an artist who has stopped painting out of grief, but as is often the case in modern horror movies, where everything stems out of trauma, she is solely defined by her pain. Danielle Deadwyler does as good a job as she can with such thin character development, making the depths of her sadness and grief palpable and intense, even through her physicality; but that’s the whole of her being. There’s one scene later on that adds a new wrinkle to what she’s going through, but it too lands as more confusing than anything else.
Peyton Jackson and Estella Kihara are also quite good as the kids, the latter cute as a button and painfully sympathetic as she’s caught in the crossfire between her headstrong brother and short-fused mom. Jackson effectively catches the conflict in Taylor between being a rebellious teen and wanting to step up as the man of the house. And then there’s Okwui Okpokwasili as the woman, a strangely conceived role that she manages to infuse with some gravitas and existential menace before the story turns her into a more standard monster.
Final Thoughts
Danielle Deadwyler as Ramona in ‘The Woman in the Yard’, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Photo: Universal Pictures.
As we stated earlier, ‘The Woman in the Yard’ does benefit from some of the early style that Collet-Serra gives it, supported by the cast, Lorne Balfe’s stirring score, and some lovely cinematography from Pawel Pogorzelski. It’s a nice switch to see a horror film unfold in bright sunlight (although this movie eventually goes dark too) with some striking imagery. But the movie’s rather languid pace and reliance on atmosphere and psychological pressure is at odds with the rapid-fire, mish-mash editing and shock-horror jolts of the film’s third act.
It almost feels like ‘The Woman in the Yard’ is fighting with itself and losing its grip as it tries to extend this material into a feature-length story. By the time it was over, as compelling as it starts out, we were ready to get outside ourselves.
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What is the plot of ‘The Woman in the Yard’?
A grieving, deeply depressed widow (Danielle Deadwyler) and her two children (Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahiha) wake up one morning in their isolated farmhouse to discover a mysterious veiled woman dressed in black shrouds sitting in their front yard and issuing a warning: “Today is the day.”
Who is in the cast of ‘The Woman in the Yard’?
Danielle Deadwyler as Ramona
Okwui Okpokwasili as The Woman
Russell Hornsby as David
Peyton Jackson as Taylor
Estella Kahiha as Annie
‘The Woman in the Yard’ opens in theaters on March 28th.
Landing on Netflix on December 13th, ‘Carry-On’ will probably make most people compare it to festive action classic ‘Die Hard.’ Which seems a little unfair given the latter film’s high watermark status in the action genre, but when you put an average joe character up against scheming criminals at Christmas, the comparisons are inevitable.
Still, ‘Carry-On,’ while it truly can’t compare to the towering 1988 benchmark, it doesn’t embarrass itself in the genre, providing a solid amount of entertainment partly thanks to good performances from its leads.
The ‘Die Hard’ comparisons, while tough for any movie to live up to, are at least slightly short-circuited by some decent worldbuilding going on here. Taron Egerton’s Ethan Kopek isn’t even at the level of John McClane, who was at least an NYPD officer. Kopek instead is more of a man in search of his place in life; while he’s happily in a relationship, his TSA job isn’t exactly the most fulfilling purpose, but he’s largely coasting.
It’s a worthwhile place from which to start a main character in a movie such as this –– because you have something to build from. You know he’s going to step up to the task at hand when the moment calls for it, but he’s not a superhero or a man (usually Liam Neeson in Jaume Collet-Serra’s other movies) with a particular set of skills. Unless you count running (foreshadowed with talk of Kopek’s high school track star status).
Likewise, Jason Bateman is an interesting choice to play the primary antagonist as the man known only as “Traveler” is more of a tactical thinker than an all-action villain. And the action element is largely effective, even if one key scene appears to borrow heavily from ‘Toy Story 2.’
The script for the movie originated with a script by T.J. Fixman (who has mostly written video games) and has been through some polishing by Michael Green (a scriptwriting veteran whose credits include the Kenneth Branagh‘s Poirot films, ‘Logan’ and ‘Jungle Cruise’).
As a result, it feels mostly lean and taught, and the characters are built in such a way as they work for this kind of movie. It’s far from a perfect screenplay, but it does nimbly skirt around some of the more egregious cliches and tropes.
It also stays mostly grounded (at least until the action shifts to a plane) and believable and finds something interesting for most of the characters to do.
Collet-Serra, meanwhile, knows his way around an action movie, and while he’s certainly pumped out some generic titles in his time, this feels sturdier and more energetic that some of his other efforts. And that’s despite it largely taking place in one location (albeit an airport that offers chances for different rooms).
If there’s one big issue with the movie, it’s a scene where Danielle Deadwyler’s detective clashes with Logan Marshall-Green’s character (we won’t reveal it so as to avoid spoilers) in a speeding car. It’s an ambitious attempt to have the actors do a lot of the work themselves as opposed to cutting around stunt people. Yet for all its kinetic energy, it suffers from sometimes looking like the cut scene from a video game, draining the tension as you can’t help but chuckle at the weird visual. For a movie that is so focused on being real-world, it’s a misfire.
Performances
While Egerton and Bateman are the crux of the story, the script shares the character development love around the rest of the cast too.
As we mentioned above, Kopek is an unmoored young man, nervously happy about becoming a father with his girlfriend Nora. He’s coasting through his job, but of course gets a chance to shine when he’s put in peril. Egerton has played some more flamboyant characters in his time, but he does solid work as Kopek, keeping him from feeling like a superhero. And his interactions with everyone around him are entirely believable.
He may never get a name, but Bateman does revel in an interesting character –– and it’s one that the actor plays well. He’s threatening but not so physically imposing as to be ridiculous. He’s also good at delivering the exposition that is naturally a part of a villain such as this.
As the dedicated LAPD detective who starts to dig into one aspect of the case, Deadwyler is similarly lumbered with some expositional dialogue but is also weaved effectively into the story later on. And she’s always convincing.
Playing off of Egerton for much of the early going, she’s eventually more than just his love interest, actually handed some agency as the plot moves forward. It also doesn’t hurt that Nora is in some ways more capable than Ethan is.
The reliable likes of Dean Norris (as Egerton’s grumpy TSA boss), Sinqua Walls (as one of his colleagues) all help to fill out the world of Kopek’s daily drudgery, while Bateman’s character is supported by the likes of Theo Rossi as his accomplice. It’s a solid ensemble for a movie such as this.
A solid action thriller with decent premise that aches in places to be ‘Die Hard’ but also does its own thing, ‘Carry-On’ might not exactly be in the first class of the genre, but it’s sitting comfortably in premium economy.
‘Carry-On’ receives 7 out of 10 stars.
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What’s the plot of ‘Carry-On’?
A young TSA agent (Taron Egerton) fights to outsmart a mysterious traveler (Jason Bateman) who blackmails him into letting a dangerous package slip onto a Christmas Eve flight.
Streaming on Netflix beginning November 22nd is ‘The Piano Lesson,’ a film adaptation of the 1990 play by legendary playwright August Wilson. John David Washington stars as Boy Willie Charles, a sharecropper and ex-con who returns with his partner Lymon (Ray Fisher) to the Pittsburgh home of his uncle, Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), in 1936 with the intention of selling the family heirloom piano that sits in Doaker’s front room.
Boy Willie intends to use the money to buy the land formerly belonging to the now-dead James Sutter, who owned the Charles family during the days of slavery. But his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler), who lives with her daughter Maretha (Skylar Aleece Smith) in her uncle’s house, is adamant that the piano stay right where it is, as a connection to the spirits of the Charles family’s ancestors, some of whom may still be present in the piano and the household.
A meditation on legacy, history, and coming to terms with the past, ‘The Piano Lesson’ is one of 10 plays written by Wilson that are known collectively as the ‘Pittsburgh Cycle’ or the ‘Century Cycle,’ which provide an overview of life for Black Americans in the 20th century. Each play is set in a different decade, while all but one take place in Pittsburgh, where Wilson grew up.
(L to R) Pauletta Washington, Katia Washington, Erykah Badu, Todd Black, Jennifer Roth, Constanza Romero, Ray Fisher, Skylar Aleece Smith, Malcolm Washington, Danielle Deadwyler, Corey Hawkins, Michael Potts, Denzel Washington, Alexandre Desplat, John David Washington, Dan Lin and Virgil Williams attend Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
‘The Piano Lesson’ is the first film directed by Malcolm Washington, son of producer Denzel Washington and brother of John David Washington. Malcolm and John’s dad has been tasked by the Wilson family with adapting all 10 of Wilson’s plays for the screen, a project that began in 2016 with ‘Fences’ (which Denzel starred in and directed) and continued in 2020 with ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ which the elder Washington produced. With Malcolm and John David both involved with ‘The Piano Lesson,’ bringing the work of one of the most important Black voices in the American arts to the screen has become a true family affair.
Denzel, John David, and Malcolm Washington all participated in a virtual press conference for the film, along with producer Todd Black and fellow cast members Ray Fisher, Corey Hawkins, and Michael Potts, during which Moviefone learned a lesson or two about the making of ‘The Piano Lesson.’
1) Malcolm Washington Says Why He Wanted To Film ‘The Piano Lesson’
John David Washington attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
With a dad who’s a director, producer, and one of the greatest living actors of his time, and a brother who’s also a rising young star on stage and screen, Malcolm Washington explained why ‘The Piano Lesson’ became his entry into the family business.
Malcolm Washington: I think it was an incredible opportunity to work with just great artists. That was really exciting. In terms of making it a film, I love cinema. I love filmmaking. I love watching films. It’s the language I speak. So I think having an opportunity to take some of the themes that are so resonant in the story and expand on them and visualize them and explore them in a new language was the most exciting, and I thought a way to honor the work in its purest essence.
2) Denzel Washington Reveals The Secret Force Behind The Film
(L to R) Pauletta Washington and Denzel Washington attend Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
The Oscar-winning actor said that his wife, Pauletta Pearson, was a driving force behind getting their son Malcolm to direct “The Piano Lesson.”
Denzel Washington: The real producer isn’t here. Which is their mom. She’s the real producer. She actually said to me, you know, “Malcolm’s got some ideas. You should talk to him and put some things together,” and that’s kind of, I think, how it started.
3) Malcolm Washington Sought Out Advice From A Filmmaking Hero
Malcolm Washington attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
Once he was confirmed to direct “The Piano Lesson,” Malcolm Washington spoke with filmmaking legend Spike Lee, a personal hero and influence.
Malcolm Washington: I called him when I first started this project. One of the first things he said was how important choosing your collaborators are. Spike’s built that community as a filmmaker both behind the camera, in front of the camera, above the line, below the line, with a diversity of opinions and thoughts and experiences. So that was the first thing that I went after, both in our cast and our crew. People from varied backgrounds, different world views, different life experiences all came together to lend a voice to this.
4) Several Of The Cast Members Performed The Play Together
Ray Fisher attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, and Samuel L. Jackson all appeared in the 2022 Broadway revival of ‘The Piano Lesson,’ which Ray Fisher said was an important dynamic that carried over to the movie.
Ray Fisher: From the stage version to the film version, I think we did form this sort of familial vibe amongst ourselves. It was a privilege to be able to work with these guys for months on end under the direction of LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who, were it not for her efforts, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation with you here today…I think it helped us to just build and bond and learn to trust one another. Whatever happened on stage, I knew J.D. had my back, I knew Michael had my back, I knew Sam had my back, and vice-versa. I think that’s one of the bigger things that carried over, just that trust in one another to be there when you need them.
Malcolm Washington recalled that when the cast and crew got together at the start of production, the chemistry between everyone working on the film was immediate.
Malcolm Washington: For real, we did a cast and crew dinner before we shot. And it was everybody around the table. Normally, moments like that, you’re kind of nervous going in. You feel like, it can be awkward. Everybody’s kind of coming together for the first time. But it was just nonstop stories and laughter — the more experienced gentlemen telling their stories, and the newer guys kind of just taking it all in. But I remember turning to Corey [Hawkins] and we were just laughing. I was like, yeah, this is what the movie is. It’s sharing stories from generation to generation. It’s coming together at this table and sharing experience.
6) The Newest Member Of The Cast Upped The Movie’s Game
Danielle Deadwyler as Berniece in ‘The Piano Lesson’. Photo: Courtesy of Netflix.
In the film, Danielle Deadwyler plays Berniece, who is steadfast in her refusal to sell the family piano despite her brother’s insistence on doing so. With credits like ‘Till,’ ‘The Harder They Fall,’ and ‘Station Eleven’ to her name, Malcolm Washington said that Deadwyler introduced a whole new energy to ‘The Piano Lesson.’
Malcolm Washington: Yeah, Danielle was just an incredible talent. There was something that was so exciting about unleashing her on these gentlemen back here. Because she’s just a force of nature, and she changes the dynamic in the room when she enters it. So watching that happen every day, scene after scene, week after week, it was a master class.
7) The Other Major New Addition To The Cast
Corey Hawkins attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
The other member of the main cast not carried over from the Broadway production is Corey Hawkins (‘In The Heights,’ ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’), who plays a preacher named Avery Brown. Avery, who is in love with the widowed Berniece, tries to vanquish the spirits from the Charles house, going so far as to speak in tongues while blessing their home.
John David Washington: You mentioned an incredible actress in Danielle, and here’s another one right here [gestures to Corey Hawkins]. Their energy and what they brought to the piece, it really opened it up even more so. We know that that was the game plan for Malcolm. Visually, cinematically, he was going to open it up. But from a performance standpoint, what [Hawkins] brings, the sequence at the end when he starts speaking in tongues and just set the tone, I didn’t know where that came from. But you couldn’t deny the energy and the spirits in the room that he started. So just playing off that and knowing we had our chemistry coming from the play was very exciting.
Like any play, ‘The Piano Lesson’ is limited to what can be done and shown on a single stage. Malcolm Washington said that the goal of the movie was to widen the story’s scope while remaining true to the spirit of the play.
Malcolm Washington: I think the biggest kind of spiritual approach we took to it was to re-imagine it and re-interpret it for a new medium. So that was visualizing and imagining, what are the characters’ dreams? What are their wants? What do they imagine for themselves? How can we build out the world around them and present that to the audience? There’s a lot of new things, like the Crawford Grill sequence, the Erykah Badu sequence, the whole beginning and ending. That all is very new and recontextualizes what the story is that lives within it, and we wanted to push all of that, as well as all the genre stuff. We were coming in to tell this ghost story that was actually a story about American history and musings on Black American spiritual practices, but all within this guise of a ghost story that we’re able to push to the forefront. So I think it was more a re-imagining of these things and these themes, and how can we tell that story cinematically.
9) ‘The Piano Lesson’ Touches On The Spiritual Aspect Of Black History
Denzel Washington attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
Although on the surface ‘The Piano Lesson’ could be described as a ghost story, Denzel Washington said that there is a much deeper meaning to the spiritual aspects of the play, embodied by the faces of the Charles family’s ancestors carved into the woodwork of the piano.
Denzel Washington: Our connection to our ancestors all the way back to Africa is a real thing. It’s a tangible, spiritual, real thing that you can feel. I remember asking my mother when I started to make it as an actor. I said, “Ma, you ever think?” She said, “Boy, all the people been praying for you — all the souls that were sacrificed for you.” You start thinking about it that way. All of those that look like us, that never made it, that got hung, that got shot, that got killed, whatever, generation after generation after generation. All of that is in us. We go down in there and it’s scary too. It’s in there and it comes out in ways that you can’t calculate. It’s not Method [acting], you know? It’s spiritual.
10) Bringing The Work Of August Wilson To New Audiences
Todd Black attends Netflix’s ‘The Piano Lesson’ LA premiere at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood on November 19, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix.
Producer Todd Black, who also produced ‘Fences’ and ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ alongside Denzel Washington, said that their ultimate goal is to film all 10 plays of Wilson’s ‘Century Cycle.’
Todd Black: Well, Denzel was asked by Constanza Wilson and the estate to kind of shepherd, if you will, the 10 plays. Then [since] we worked together a lot, he came to me, and we talked about it. It’s an incredible honor. You get to bring one of the greatest playwrights ever in the world to the big screen. People don’t understand, theater is a smaller audience, and not everyone has the opportunity to see August Wilson’s work. So to get to put it in the theater and put it on Netflix, so many more people get to see it. It’s a huge responsibility. It lives forever. So we feel very, very responsible for bringing all of these with the right people at the helm and the right actors. Certainly, we couldn’t have gotten luckier with these actors. We are planning on doing the next one. We’re not going to announce what that is yet, but the goal is to do all 10 of them.
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What is the plot of ‘The Piano Lesson’?
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, ‘The Piano Lesson’ follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson) household and an heirloom, the family piano, which is decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor.
Horror, reality-bending fantasy, and a whole lot of ‘90s nostalgia come together in ‘I Saw the TV Glow,’ the second full-length feature film written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, who made their debut in 2021 with the creepy, pandemic-infused ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.’ This time out, Schoenbrun takes their cues from David Lynch, ‘Donnie Darko,’ and weird ‘90s kids television to tell a story of suburban apathy and gender dysphoria that’s both haunting and poignant, even if it may seem obscure to some viewers.
Story and Direction
Director Jane Schoenbrun on the set of ‘I Saw the TV Glow’. Photo: A24.
In a drab, unnamed suburb that already seems like an alternate universe where everyone is half-dead, Owen (played as a young boy by Ian Foreman and as a teen by Justice Smith) bonds with an older teen named Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over their shared interest in a kids’ TV show called ‘The Pink Opaque.’ Owen’s fascination derives from seeing commercials for the show, since his parents say it’s on too late for him to watch (“Isn’t that a show for girls?” sneers his father, played by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst with a distant, icy menace).
Maddy, however, is hooked, toting around an episode guide like her own personal Bible and eventually having Owen sneak over to watch it with her under the pretense of him going to a friend’s house for a sleepover (she later passes him VHS tapes of the ones he misses). The show itself looks like so many of the cheap, cheesy, lo-fi “young adult” programs (and later, more sophisticated ones like ‘Buffy’) that proliferated in the ‘90s on Nickelodeon and other basic cable channels, centering around two girls, Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan), who meet at summer camp and share a psychic link that allows them to battle all kinds of monsters – and an overarching big bad called Mr. Melancholy – without even meeting up again.
It’s soon clear that Isabel and Tara are embodiments of a different existence for Owen and Maddy, and that the TV characters’ embrace of their powers and true selves is something that the real-life friends both yearn for. But only Maddy takes action, abruptly disappearing from town just as ‘The Pink Opaque’ is canceled. When she eventually resurfaces to a shocked older Owen, she tells him that the world of ‘The Pink Opaque’ is actually real – and that the reality they inhabit may be the fictional one.
‘I Saw the TV Glow’. Photo: A24.
Has Maddy gone mad? What is the truth? Owen doesn’t know for sure, but he does sense that something is wrong, and that there is a version of him that does not want to slide down the same suburban path to dissolution that he sees all around him. As Owen’s world begins to shift and change, Schoenbrun allows the film to mutate with it: sometimes Owen addresses the audience directly, while the lines between his reality and another seem to cross, merge, and blur in a hallucinogenic whirl of imagery that flickers in and out of the ‘Pink Opaque.’
Schoenbrun directs all this as if they are both inside Owen’s world and outside of it, coolly observing his twisting journey with detachment while also allowing us to feel the rawness of his emotions and the terror he feels as he is literally pulled in two directions. The director also captures the bittersweet tang of memory, especially in a later scene where an older, defeated Owen finds a rerun of ‘The Pink Opaque’ on late-night TV and suddenly sees it for the amateurish, chintzy production it really is —even though his childhood memory of it was magical.
Much of the final act of the film plays out in the arid Fun Center – which is anything but – where Owen works. It’s there that part of Schoenbrun’s theme, that suburbia is a draining hellspace of alienation, comes on most heavily, but the director doesn’t seem to have much to say about it that’s new. The other part of the director’s thesis, however, is much more personal and may get lost on viewers who don’t have the same lived experience.
Self-Realization
Justice Smith in ‘I Saw the TV Glow’. Photo: A24.
‘I Saw the TV Glow’ is an allegory about the “egg crack,” the moment in which a trans person suddenly and clearly sees that who they are inside may no longer match up with what the world sees on the outside. Schoenbrun’s own personal journey as a trans person is embedded into the film, while Owen and Maddy are two people who are going through the same thing – represented by the way in which they relate to the characters of Isabel and Tara on ‘The Pink Opaque.’
One of them, Maddy, is becoming more comfortable with who she is already, embracing the idea that she can step into another world and live honestly. A confused and desperate Owen, meanwhile, sees the truth within his grasp but can’t quite pry himself away from the conventional story that he feels he has to live. “Do you like girls?” Maddy quizzes him at one point, after letting him know where she stands. “I don’t know,” says Owen haltingly. When Maddy asks if he prefers boys, Owen replies, “I think I like TV shows…When I think about that stuff, I feel like someone took a shovel and dug out my insides.”
Smith (‘Jurassic World: Dominion’) and Lundy-Paine (‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’) give these conflicted characters real warmth and depth. Lundy-Paine gives Maddy an initial guardedness that turns into steely determination and eventually an otherworldly aura, while Smith is achingly sad and also affectingly sweet as the tormented Owen, effectively communicating through both his physicality and makeup how Owen seems to fold into himself as the years go by, leading to a wrenching finale.
Final Thoughts
‘I Saw the TV Glow’. Photo: A24.
In many ways, ‘I Saw the TV Glow’ is independent filmmaking in the truest sense, a film that is very much a deeply personal vision filtered through an experimental narrative and dream-like visual imagery. If some of its ideas are somewhat shopworn – we’ve been told many times by many movies how soul-deadening suburbia can be – other concepts, like finding one’s true self, are relevant right this minute as trans and LGBTQ+ people are increasingly under fire for expressing just that. Even without that subtext, Jane Schoenbrun’s fever dream is compelling, frequently unnerving viewing that will strike different chords with everyone who sees it.
‘I Saw the TV Glow’ receives 7.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘I Saw the TV Glow’?
Loners in their arid ‘90s suburban enclave and outcasts in their tribal school system, Owen (Ian Foreman and Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) forge a bond over their love of a weekly “young adult” program called ‘The Pink Opaque.’ But when Maddy disappears, Owen realizes that their connection to the show might be more than mere fandom – and that the very nature of reality may be starting to crumble around them.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Aldis Hodge about his work on ‘Parallel,’ developing the screenplay, creating a realistic multiverse, playing multiple versions of his character, working with his brother, and Danielle Deadwyler’s strong performance.
Aldis Hodge in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
The actor also discussed his possible future in James Gunn’s new DC Universe, confirmed that he is not in talks to play Green Lantern John Stewart, and looks back at playing Hawkman in ‘Black Adam.’
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Aldis Hodge, Edwin Hodge, and director Kourosh Ahari.
Aldis Hodge talks ‘Parallel.’
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about developing the screenplay, the themes you wanted to explore, and creating a realistic multiverse?
Aldis Hodge: It’s weird, we didn’t even think about the term multiverse, and now, it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that that’s exactly what we were doing. We were just working based off the original film ‘Parallel Forest,’ the Chinese version that we saw, that we were inspired by, and it really came down to the complexities of the relationships. The way they approached it in the original film, I think that they had a genius approach to the emotional depth and subtleties there. We just wanted to do our version of that, but in a way, something that paid homage, or honored the original film, and how it inspired us. The film was brought to my brother and I by Jaylen Moore, from Rumble Riot. Jaylen is a good buddy of ours, and he brought us a really great opportunity, then introduced us to Jonathon Keasey, who was another writer on the project. My brother and I, we got up and we talked to John, and the process between my brother and I, going back and forth, was easy. We know how we work; we just want to get the job done. We had the same goal, the same intention moving forward with this project. Anytime you’re working on anything with anybody, if it’s your family, your partner, your business partners, if everybody has the same goal in mind, everybody has a different route to get there, but if you have the same goal in mind, you’re going to get there. Where my brother had a different approach to certain things, that opened my mind to being able to see different options, and where I had a different approach to certain things, that opened his mind, and we just complimented each other on the journey. I call this a great education. This was school for us, and it was wonderful.
(L to R) Aldis Hodge and Edwin Hodge in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
MF: What was it like for you to get write, produce and act in this project with your brother and really share this experience with him?
AH: This was our first time as writers and producers, but we’ve acted together in many projects before, from ‘Sesame Street,’ when we were kids, to ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance,’ to ‘Big Momma’s House.’ We’ve done ‘Showboat,’ we did a run of ‘Showboat’ on Broadway for a long time together. We’re used to working with each other, and we’ve always been looking forward to getting an opportunity to work together again. Here, we just learned a lot on the producing side, how to manage a team, how to really stay in your lane, and figure out how to get people to understand how to approach you, and how to see you. For us, that was the new experience, where we were learning together, and we would go home and just talk about it. We’d talk about the day, and figure out, “All right, this didn’t go so well over here. How do we want to attack that tomorrow? This went right, and how do we keep it going well?” It was constant check-ins, and making sure that we were up to date on everything that we needed to get done.
Aldis Hodge in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
MF: Can you talk about the first version of Alex that we see in this movie, his relationship with his wife Vanessa, and how he is dealing with her grief?
AH: Alex number one? I don’t want to give away the cookies, but he is a grieving husband. Him and his wife are dealing with a situation they can’t control. He doesn’t really know how to deal with her, or handle her on it, so he’s just trying to figure it out. He’s at a loss as well, and he is hurting in a way where he needs somebody to be there for him, but he needs to be there for somebody else, and he must figure out what that balance is. He’s going through it, but the relationship between him and Vanessa is very much layered. It’s not easy, because there’s a lot of doubt, a lot of blame, a lot of guilt that they’re dealing with as husband and wife, and they don’t know how to get back to being husband and wife. They’re lost in their grief, and it becomes suffocating.
Danielle Deadwyler in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
MF: What was it like working with Danielle Deadwyler and building that relationship with her?
AH: She’s amazing, man. I keep repeating myself, but she was a gift, and she blessed us with her gifts, and I’m just so grateful. For my brother and I’s first time out, venturing into this space, rookies, we couldn’t have gotten luckier having somebody with this talent of this magnitude, and being able to come with so much humility, grace, poise, and just kindness. She’s a sweet person, a sweetheart, and she just also happens to be very brilliant at what she does, so we were very lucky. She’s a rockstar, you know what I mean? Again, we got lucky.
(L to R) Aldis Hodge and Danielle Deadwyler in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
MF: Can you talk about the challenges of playing multiple versions of the same character, and was there one version that you really enjoyed playing?
AH: That is the challenge, and that’s the thing that drew me to it. That’s the biggest opportunity presented as an actor, from just that isolated lane, being able to figure out how to, in the same space, in the same film, make these several different people, and make them as obviously different as possible. That’s really where the fun lies, because for me, I just chose different emotional groups, and applied them to different versions, to say, “You represent this, and you represent that.” It was the easiest way, because I’m not going to lie, there were some days where I’ll be on set, and I’d get confused. I’m like, “Which version am I playing now?” Someone is like, “Didn’t you write it?” I’m like, “Yeah, I wrote it, but don’t worry about it. Help me figure it out.” I wanted to make sure that I got that right, because just in my career, that’s always been something that I aim for. To play a bunch of different roles as varied and vast as possible and have such a body of work that is just so diverse it cannot be compared or quantified in any similar space, and this is as obvious of an opportunity, and a challenge to do so. I was happy about that. I didn’t have a favorite, but the idea of Alex is just my favorite because the thing that I loved about this was playing the differences, being able to challenge myself with having to be as familiar and equally unique in the same space as possible. I look at films as opportunities to go to the gym, flex my muscles a little bit, and to work out. For this film, what I was trying to work out, or work on was, how sharp and distinct can I be when it comes to really trying to build out this whole person? Usually, you’re on set, you only must worry about playing one person. Even if they’re pretending to be somebody else, it’s still the same person. You only must worry about one perspective. This one, you have a few very different versions, with very different perspectives, and I just wanted to make sure I hit that as much as possible. It’s really the whole idea of Alex that is my favorite.
‘Green Lantern: Beware My Power.’ Photo: Warner Bros. Animation.
MF: Recently there was an online rumor that you might play Green Lantern John Stewart in the new DCU. Is that true? Have you had any talks with James Gunn or DC Studios about it, and would that mean that you won’t return as Hawkman?
AH: I want to set the record straight. I was doing an interview, and someone asked me about my future in DC. I told them, I don’t know, because that’s above my pay grade. They asked me if I wasn’t coming back to reprise my role as Hawkman, is there anybody else I’d want to be? “What about John Stewart?” I said, well, I’ve been voicing John Stewart in the animated space for a few years now. I always had an affinity for that character, and I think that would be cool, but I’m not having conversations about it. Someone asked me, and I just said, yeah, that would be a cool idea. If that was on their mind, and they picked up the phone, I’d be open to it. Again, that’s above my pay grade. You’re going to have to go talk to DC about that. Ain’t nobody called me about nothing, so we can calm that chatter right there.
MF: Finally, looking back at your role as Hawkman in ‘Black Adam’ and making that movie, was it a positive experience for you personally?
AH: Honestly, it was one of the best sets I’ve ever worked on. The cast was incredible. I have so many great memories from that film, from that film family. Shout outs to everybody. Honestly, we had a great time. DJ (Dwayne Johnson) is great, him and his whole camp are great. I miss my people, from Noah (Centineo) to Quintessa (Swindell) to Mr. Pierce Brosnan, the coolest brother in the room, Mo (Mohammed Amer), and Sarah Shahi. Everybody was dope on that set. I’m happy that we got a chance to get at it, because it was one of the best experiences of my career.
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What is the Plot of ‘Parallel’?
Parallel follows the story of Vanessa (Danielle Deadwyler) who takes refuge at her family’s lake house to grieve after suffering the loss of her child. Accompanied by her husband, Alex (Aldis Hodge), and his brother, Martel (Edwin Hodge), Vanessa attempts to regain her sense of normalcy after the tragedy. But soon after their arrival, she experiences an aberration when she is attacked by a parallel universe’s version of herself. Faced with the reality that multiverses exist, she must reconcile the fact that these parallel gates will either hold the key to releasing her grief or trapping her forever.
Who is in the Cast of ‘Parallel’?
Danielle Deadwyler as Vanessa
Aldis Hodge as Alex
Edwin Hodge as Martel
(L to R) Aldis Hodge, Danielle Deadwyler and Edwin Hodge in ‘Parallel.’ Photo: Vertical Entertainment.
Out now in theaters, ‘Till’ has a powerful, shocking and important story to tell, but the film delivering the message isn’t always quite up to the task and occasionally dips into such earnestness that it verges on parody.
The horrific lynching of Black teen Emmett Louis Till in Mississippi in 1955 remains both a terrible stain on human history and the spur for real, positive change in American race relations, mostly thanks to his crusading mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.
What really makes the movie work is a full-power lead performance from actress Danielle Deadwyler, who completely owns the role of Mamie and absolutely holds your attention in a vice grip whenever she is on screen.
The movie chronicles what happened when 14-year-old Emmett travelled from Chicago to Mississippi to visit his uncle and cousins. A worried Mamie – her anxiety at her son being away for an extended period of time understandably heightened by the seething racism pervading much of the South – packs him off on the train after numerous warnings about not attracting attention and being careful how he interacts with white people.
Emmett, though, a vivacious, bright and sweet lad (played well here by Jalyn Hall) is mostly excited to be taking the trip and to hang out with his cousins. Frustrated by spending long hours in the sun picking cotton, he’s happier making everyone laugh.
That evening, the group heads to a local store to enjoy cokes and conversation. Emmett heads in to buy candy. Working the counter is the nervy Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett), who is none too thrilled when Emmett compliments her by telling her she looks like a movie star. It’s an innocent encounter for him but compounded when he later wolf-whistles at her.
Carolyn goes for a gun and the customers scramble, but while Emmett is convinced that the incident has blown over with no repercussions, tragedy strikes when a group of white men, including Bryant’s husband, Roy (Sean Michael Weber), and his half-brother J.W. Milam (Eric Whitten) abduct him from his uncle’s house at gun point.
Emmett is tortured and lynched (the film chooses to have this happen mostly offscreen), and his bloated, scarred and ruined body shows up in a river days later.
A heartbroken Mamie insists on having her son’s body sent back to Chicago, displayed in an open casket without his injuries being repaired, and allowing pictures to be sent out. Her hope is to spur the arm of justice and to bring such racist attacks to a wider audience.
Teaming up with the NAACP and Civil Rights crusaders such as Medgar Evers (played by Tosin Cole), Mamie travels to Mississippi to speak at Bryant and Milam’s trial, hoping against hope that a jury composed entirely of old White men will actually deliver a guilty verdict.
As history records, it doesn’t work out that way – even later, when the men confessed to the crime in a magazine interview and still remained free – but the stage was set for the eventual passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1957 and, with a typically slow crawl on such matters, the introduction of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a Federal hate crime, this year.
It is the sort of story that demands faithfulness and care, and director Chinonye Chukwu certainly delivers on that front, eschewing showy style and (usually) unnecessary dramatics to bring it to life.
Working with co-writers Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp, she largely allows the importance of the message to shine through, but the real ace up her sleeve is her leading actor.
Deadwyler is a revelation here: she has been working for years and impressed recently in Western ‘The Harder They Fall’. But in ‘Till’, she’s on another level, by turns crusading and crushed, human and heroic.
She’s so magnetic, the movie sometimes suffers when she’s not on screen. Mamie is truly put through the wringer in this narrative, and Deadwyler has the skill to make every moment work. She is endlessly watchable whether she’s interacting with her son or keening over his battered body.
We’ll be surprised if her name doesn’t crop up in awards talk as a real Best Actress contender, such is the impressive level of work on display here. Directors will hopefully be beating down her door to cast her after this.
Which is not to say the rest of the ensemble is in any way lacking. As mentioned, Hall infuses Emmett with such joyous life that his slaying is all the more tragic. Whoopi Goldberg, in a smaller role as Mamie’s own mother (she also co-produced the movie), is quietly powerful when called upon, though her character somewhat fades into the background when Mamie heads to Mississippi.
On the troublesome side, the movie does tend to dip into indulgence at times, scenes and certain shots left to linger long past when they should have cut away. Other editing choices are confusing, scenes cutting away abruptly when they needed room to breathe.
One or two of the performances also verge on cliched and overwrought. The issues with the movie don’t dilute the power of the message, though, and if you only know the tale Emmett Till as a vague, troubling moment in history, this is a way to educate yourself.
If films such as this can sometimes feel like you’re being told to eat your vegetables, the story itself is worth digging into, as relevant today as it ever was. Which might be one of the saddest truths of all.
Opening in theaters on October 14th is the new biographical drama ‘Till,’ which was directed by Chinonye Chukwu (‘Clemency’) and is based on the heartbreaking true story of Emmet Till.
The film tells the true story of 14-year-old Emmet Till (Jalyn Hall), who in 1955 traveled from Chicago to Mississippi and was murdered by white supremacists. The story also follows the aftermath of the tragedy and how Emmet’s mother, Mamie (Danielle Deadwyler) became an educator and activist in the Civil Rights Movement following her son’s death.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Danielle Deadwyler and Jalyn Hall about their work on ‘Till,’ the true story it is based on, approaching their roles, and what they hope audiences learn from the film.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Deadwyler, Hall, and director Chinonye Chukwu.
Moviefone: To begin with, Danielle, what does it mean for you personally to be a part of a project like this, and how did your research help you prepare for this role?
Danielle Deadwyler: This project is a part of a continuum of my experience in being a recipient of the legacy of civil rights. I’m from Atlanta. My family attended Cascade United Methodist Church, where the pastor at the time was Dr. Joseph Lowry. Dr. Joseph Lowry had the relationship with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, and they started the SCLC, which is the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
And that is where I did years along with my siblings of volunteer work and learned about organizing and learned about civil rights. I learned about the contributions of SCLC to the Civil Rights Movement, and from women who are unsung in a way that Mamie Till is unsung.
So, all of that connects to Mamie Till, and that Dr. King was deeply impacted by her, Rosa Parks was deeply impacted by here, and by the choices that she made at this time. So, all of that personal history for me and experience goes into my understanding, my own spiritual personal research of what this project, what Mamie Till’s role was historically, and within the context of this, based on the true story narrative.
In conjunction to that, there was just a host of other resources that I dove into, be them archival images, photographs, videos, a wealth of academic thesis, music, poetry, all kinds of stuff. As well as personal anecdotes that come from people, Chicagoans who had Interfacings with Mamie Till in the latter years of her life.
Also talking with Keith Beauchamp, who was a mentee of Mamie, and was one of our producers and a co-writer of the film. So, I’ve just had a super well rounded, spiritual, familial, personal, academic, artistic resource well that enabled me to have as much as I could to go into this role with.
MF: Jalyn, what does it mean to you personally to be part of a project like this?
Jalyn Hall: This project means so much to me in a sense of, I myself am only one year older than how old Emmett was when these series of events happened. So, it’s that seeing myself in this person, in this child, and having the same personality traits, love for my mom, love for my family, love for the world in general, and just wanting to be happy and have fun.
So, being able to portray that in such a manner so that the whole world can see this human being, this human child for who he was, was something that was so important to not only me, but to my team, my family, and my community in general. That’s something that wasn’t always shown.
Unfortunately, not everyone knows about the story, but those who do know only know a little bit, a tiny fraction of who he was. Or not even who he was, but what happened to him that changed the world, that started revolutions. But not him as a single person. Not his relationship with his mother, not the love that his mother had for him, and what that made her do.
So, it’s understanding the essence of these two people and what actually happened. That authenticity is amazing, and that’s what it is to me. It’s the authentic story that people can learn, educate, feel, connect with, and take back whatever it is that they do.
MF: Finally, what do you hope audiences take away from Emmett’s story?
JH: They will take back whatever is significant to them, and they will change in whatever way is unique to them. But hopefully just knowing the love and unity that was shown between Emmett and his mother and seeing the love and unity that was not shown from others in Mississippi at that time.
Seeing the loving unity around people today, around themselves, around their people, around their family, around others, and just seeing where that came from and where it will go in the future. So, hopefully they see that. Hopefully they come back with knowing that.
