Sterling K. Brown And Ernest Kingsley Jr. Discuss ‘Washington Black'

Forbes

a day ago

Sterling K. Brown is an executive producer on Hulu's latest miniseries, Washington Black, created by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds and adapted from Esi Edugyan's novel of the same name. The show follows the life of George Washington 'Wash' Black, during the 19th century. Wash is an 11-year-old boy with a gift for sciences, who lives on a sugar plantation on Barbados, but must flee in order to save his life. His journey will eventually lead him to Nova Scotia, where he will become a young man, fall in love, nourish his passion for sciences and discover that the threat he flew away from, might have followed him there.
I spoke with the stars of the show, Sterling K. Brown and Ernest Kingsley Jr. who portrays Wash as a young man. I asked Brown what it meant to him to be a producer on this show, and if he felt like it had an impact on how he viewed a character, in terms of having more freedom and space to interpret a character.
He said, 'Being a producer is more about having a huge amount of say in a story I wanna tell. But does it impact how a view a character? No, because once I turn it over to the writers and they start putting it down, as long as I'm in agreement of what this person is going through, what their objectives are, the themes that I wanna explore in the character, then I sort of commit to that part. But to be in this place where you're like, 'Okay, this is the kind of story that I want to put out into the world, why do I want put that story into the world? What effect am I hoping to have with this story?' As a producer who is reading things, checking out articles and etcetera, you're like 'This would make a good story because it highlights this.''
He added: 'Ultimately for me, I'm someone who is a firm believer that love is the most powerful force in the world. So when love is at the core of a story , I'm like 'How can I highlight this version of love?' That's what sort of appeals to me.'
The young actor Eddie Karanja portrays 11-year-old Wash, so I asked Kingsley if they had both talked about how they were going to portray Wash. He said, 'We were brothers in another life, I firmly believe that. They casted twin flames. But yes, we found some time with the directors to discuss mannerisms, but more so like the essence of what we wanted to keep and do, like this curiosity that he brings to the role, I definitely wanted to make sure that Wash being older, that I firmly hold on to that. I spent a lot of time on set as well, watching him and learning from him as well, whilst he was doing his thing.'
When a movie or TV show is based on a book, it might be sometimes tricky for actors to find a way to draw the line between what fans of the book know and expect from the show, and what they are going to bring to the table as creatives. I asked Brown about finding the right balance in this situation for Washington Black.
He said, 'You trust the person who you entrusted to interpret the text, to come up with a version of something that people would wanna watch. Sometimes there are some incredibly faithful adaptations where they just took the story the way it came out in the book. Sometimes you use the book as a jumping off point, to sort of highlight a story that you wanna tell. I think Selwyn's original adaptation did a wonderful job of sort of taking the heart of what takes place in the novel, and then just extrapolating it and using it to create this vast and immersive world.'
He added: 'It's a skill I should say I do not possess at the moment, so when I see somebody who has this incredible ability of taking somebody else's work, and make something new, I marvel.'
In the book, Wash is the narrator and the story is written in the first person, so I asked Kingsley if he felt like it had an impact on his portrayal of Wash, and if he felt like it gave him more access to his character. The actor explained that the use of the first person helped him get closer to Wash's 'mental during this whole turbulent adventure.'
He said, 'If you saw my book now, it's just green pen, all over the pages. I gave it to my dad, the other day because he was like 'I wanna read the book before it comes out!' And it was just pages of my own handwriting all over. It's a gift to have a book written in the first person.'
During this whole epic, adventurous and heartfelt series, we can also admire some incredible landscapes, especially as Wash is able to fly, board a pirate ship and even study the beauty and species of underwater marine life, which is a scene that required the actor to overcome his phobia of water. He explained how this set had the biggest impact on his performance.
He said, 'I go underwater for a long time, and I thought it was beautiful, and it was especially beautiful because I had a phobia of water before I started filming. I learnt how to swim, I took lessons. That scene was towards the end of filming, so to build it up to that moment, and be able to do that in this whole different world, where there's fish swimming beside me, I was like 'What am I doing here? This is whimsical!''
Washington Black is now available to stream on Disney+