'Washington Black' is the show that could, just like its main character
The 2018 novel by Canadian writer Esi Edugyan caught actor Sterling K. Brown's eye. As he put the wheels in motion, things just started to line up in a most un-Hollywood fashion — so much so that Brown started to believe strongly the project was meant to be.
'Sometimes you keep hitting barricades and obstacles and you're like 'Well maybe I should step away.' No, things kept falling into line in such a lovely way that let me know that we were moving in the direction we were supposed to go,' he recalls.
It felt appropriate that the universe wanted a coming-of-age story about a Black boy with big dreams, who goes from the Barbados plantation where he was born to finding freedom, love and friendship across the seas. The eight-episode miniseries premieres Wednesday on Hulu.
Brown noted that, as a producer, he wants to put out tales that can benefit society.
'I think for me it's been the sort of fare that has been reserved for people that don't look like us so much,' he says — so the opportunity to make it happen was 'very exciting.'
The idea of doing a show where a young person overcomes tumultuous circumstances through hope and joy enchanted him: 'They were telling him, 'Maybe you should dream smaller.' He just kept going up. It's beautiful.'
Adapting the book
The first stop was finding a writer and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds fit the bill perfectly. His lyrical style and family background inspired Brown — who also acts in the show — to get him on board as one of the two showrunners. Born and raised in Guyana, Hinds moved to the United States as a teen with his family, and felt the story spoke to him personally.
'It's always been part of my desire as a writer to tell stories that connect the Caribbean to the overall diaspora,' Hinds says.
The show follows 11-year-old George Washington 'Wash' Black, born into slavery in Barbados on a plantation owned by the Wilde family in the 1830s. His quick mind, inquisitiveness and knack for science get the attention of Christopher 'Titch' Wilde (Tom Ellis), an inventor, who enlists him as his assistant. A tragic turn of events forces them to run away together and takes them on adventures on the high seas, North America and ultimately the Arctic; the story stretches across almost a decade.
Adapting it into eight episodes required changes to the book, but they kept to the emotional core of the journey.
'It's big and expansive, not for its own sake, but because I think that thematically reflects the character's heart and the character's own ambitions,' says Hinds.
The series, which filmed across locations in Nova Scotia, Canada; Virginia, Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Iceland took nine months to complete.
Co-showrunner Kim Harrison is still incredulous at pulling off such a massive endeavor of juggling multiple locations, temperamental weather and stars' schedules.
'When you look back at the finished product, you're like, 'Wow, we did that,'' she says of the feat.
Two stars are born, with a mentor to boot
Among the many elements that had to work, the most crucial one, perhaps, was finding its young leads — one actor to play young Wash and another to play him as a young adult.
After months and months of auditions and thousands of tapes, they both revealed themselves in an 'undeniable' way to the producers.
'They both carry the truth of the character in their eyes … like they've got the same emotional expression and intelligence and empathy in their in their eyes,' Hinds says. He's speaking of Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Eddie Karanja, who was just 14 at the time.
Kingsley got the older part three months out of acting school in London; he was bowled over when he had to do a chemistry read with Brown, who stars as Medwin Harris, a Black community leader and father figure in the Nova Scotia years. Brown found himself impressed by the newcomer immediately.
'This kid embodies the hopefulness, the sort of Black boy joy that is the engine that drives the show,' he recalls thinking during auditions.
Brown inadvertently became a mentor to the inexperienced actors on set because he wanted all of them to feel comfortable. He remembers how young actors feel unable to voice doubts or practical questions because everyone else seems to know what they're supposed to do.
'You just want to give them the space to share all of that so we can move through it together,' he says.
He extended the same helping hand to Iola Evans, who plays older Wash's love interest, and Edward Bluemel, her suitor. Brown always made time in his busy schedule to visit the set to watch, listen and generally be a hype man.
Don't call him a baddie
Charles Dance, the inscrutable paterfamilias James Wilde, surprised everyone who'd seen him in 'Game of Thrones.'
Hinds recollects even Ellis, who plays Dance's character's son, gave a speech at the wrap party in Iceland saying how shockingly nice Dance was — he had been terrified before meeting him.
'So the fact that Charles is scary and intimidating just worked beautifully for us,' laughs Hinds as Ellis channeled it into his performance.
Karanja says he even got a boost from Dance: 'Charles was the warmest guy and he continued to give me confidence in myself as an actor.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Old people are capable of more': meet the female weightlifters in their 70s and 80s
Joan MacDonald is an influencer. There's no other word for it, though she winces a little when she says it. But she is an influencer, and an extremely successful one. The fitness maven has been on the covers of magazines such as Women's Health, modeled as part of lucrative brand deals and launched her own fitness app, Train With Joan. On Instagram, where she has more than 2 million followers, she shares pictures of herself posing in bikinis in picturesque locales and training at the gym in color-coordinated workout sets. But there's one small difference between MacDonald and many other social media starlets. She is 79. 'I was 70 when I started [working out],' MacDonald says on a video call from her home in Ontario, white hair elegantly coiffed. 'I keep thinking I'm in my 30s.' MacDonald's workouts are intense, whether you're 30 or 70. She does deadlifts, weighted planks and kettlebell swings, and casually lifts dumbbells the size of fire extinguishers over her head. Her arm muscles could put professional rugby players to shame. She is arguably the most famous older woman lifting heavy, but she's far from the only one. There's Ernestine Shepherd, 89, who has more than 101,000 Instagram followers and calls herself 'the world's oldest living female competitive bodybuilder'. Nora Langdon, in her 80s, recently shared a video of herself deadlifting 225 pounds. And earlier this year, the New Yorker published a documentary about Catherine Kuehn, who broke multiple world records for deadlifting in her 90s. This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Many of these lifters seem to delight in bucking the stereotype of the frail old woman who needs help carrying her groceries. 'Once you reach a certain age, it's like you can't do anything any more,' MacDonald says. 'Trainers and coaches dumb down everything for older people, but old people are capable of more than they think.' As they age, women's physical abilities are often underestimated by others as well as themselves, says Elaina Manolis, a physical therapist and assistant clinical professor at Northeastern University. Manolis says the menopausal and post-menopausal women she works with often need help unlearning the negative messages about exercise they absorbed growing up. 'This is a generation that has been wired to think women should never be in the gym,' she says. MacDonald and Shepherd remember worrying they would 'look manly' when they started lifting. 'At the beginning, I thought, 'I don't want to be lifting weights, I'll look like a guy,'' recalls MacDonald. 'But that's just brainwashing. [Women] are told that so much that we believe it.' Women who avoid strength training are robbed of its benefits, many of which are especially helpful for ageing bodies. In addition to building muscle – which one can do at any age, Manolis notes – strength training has a significant impact on bone health and cognitive function. The former is especially important for women, who have a much higher risk of developing conditions that weaken the bones, like osteopenia and osteoporosis. And it's fun. Shepherd says that as soon as she started strength training, her favorite thing about it was 'the joy and the way that you felt'. She and her sister started lifting when they were in their mid-50s, and soon they were training others and building a community. 'I would wear what my trainer would call my 'costumes',' she says – shorts, crop tops, leopard-print leggings. MacDonald says she faced some criticism from people in her life when she first started working out and posting about it on Instagram. 'I got some really awful remarks from people I thought were my friends,' she says. They commented on how she dressed – 'because I wear form-fitting clothing', MacDonald says – and her growing public profile. 'They said I didn't have to prance around and keep telling people what I was doing,' she says. 'That's not what old women are supposed to do. You're sort of told, 'Go quietly out the back door, will you?'' Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion Attitudes are shifting, though. Manolis says she has lots of patients coming to her saying: 'I know I should start [lifting], I've been listening to a lot of podcasts.' And this is the first year the National Senior Games – an Olympic-style, multi-sport competition event for adults over 50 that takes place biennially in the US – will include a powerlifting competition. 'Over the last three or four years, more and more people have been asking me when we're going to add [powerlifting],' says Sue Hlavaseck, president and CEO of the National Senior Games Association (NSGA). Roughly 12,400 athletes are expected to participate in this year's National Senior Games, which are taking place in Des Moines, Iowa, at the end of July. Of those, 187 will be participating in the powerlifting competition – 99 men, aged 54 to 95, and 88 women, aged 50 to 82. The oldest female competitor, 82-year-old Faith O'Reilly, says a friend took her to a powerlifting meet in her late 30s. 'I was watching everybody and I thought, 'Well, I can do that,'' she says. O'Reilly has been lifting ever since. 'It suits me,' she says. She likes setting goals for herself, and enjoys the camaraderie of gyms and meets. And she appreciates the independence and confidence it has brought her. 'I've always liked being able to do things,' she says. 'And that's what powerlifting can do for you – you can handle your grandchildren, and your sacks of groceries.' Regardless of age, if you've never picked up weights before, it's best to start by working with a trainer or physical therapist who can help with form and individual needs. 'In most gyms that I've been in, people are happy to help,' says O'Reilly. Total beginners can see significant improvements in strength fairly quickly, says Manolis. She's had patients say that after four to six weeks of training they were able to get out of a chair without using their hands, walk up a full flight of stairs, vacuum the whole house or load a dishwasher for the first time in years. 'As we age, what we really want to do is to keep our independence and remain functional,' Manolis says. Strength training facilitates both of these things. That doesn't mean it's a cure-all. 'Being healthy and living life to the best of your ability doesn't mean you're going to be happy every day, or that you're going to be without pain or accidents,' MacDonald says. 'These things happen, but that's life. You've got to keep pushing forward.'
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Australian reality TV stars shocked by VERY surprising cameo in newly released Happy Gilmore 2 film
Two Australian reality TV stars have expressed their shock after making a very unexpected cameo in the newly released US film Happy Gilmore 2. Love Island Australia stars Kaylah Holmes, 23, and Hannah Steinfeld, 25, are featured in a scene in the Netflix movie - in which the characters watch LIA on TV. In the Adam Sandler movie, golfer John Daly (playing himself) and Christopher McDonald (reprising his role from part one) are seen watching a racy clip from LIA on a TV at Gilmore's house. In the movie, Hannah is seen on the TV flaunting her jaw-dropping bikini body as she takes an outdoor shower, while chatting to Kaylah. 'This girl's got some body on her!' Christopher's character remarks about Kaylah, to which John replies: 'Hey, we do not objectify women anymore.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. The shock cameo caught the attention of both reality stars, with Kaylah sharing a clip from the movie to social media and writing alongside it: 'Definitely didn't expect to see this when watching Happy Gilmore 2,' while Hannah added: 'Iconic'. Kaylah and Hannah featured on series six of the Channel Nine reality TV series LIA in 2024. Love Island Australia is available to watch in America on Disney's streaming platform Hulu. The long-awaited sequel premiered on Netflix on Friday. It's been nearly three decades since the cast of Happy Gilmore initially hit the links. And three of the film's iconic stars looked almost unrecognisable on Tuesday, when they appeared on the Today show. Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, and Julie Bowen appeared on the show to discuss the highly-anticipated sequel to the hit 1996 comedy. Sandler, 58, who played the eponymous character, was sporting a shock of salt-and-pepper facial hair, looking a far cry from the fresh-faced 28-year-old who appeared in the original. In the Adam Sandler movie, golfer John Daly (right) is seen watching a racy clip from LIA on a TV at Gilmore's house His casual sense of style hadn't changed though, with the actor wearing a colourful floral-patterned shirt. Julie Bowen, 55, who played Happy's love interest Virginia Venit, also cut a distinctly different figure from her '90s self. In the original film, Julie sported a very era-appropriate short blonde bob. Julie, who is also known for her iconic role as Claire Dunphy on Modern Family, wore her much longer blonde locks down for the chat. She also cut a very stylish figure in a smart houndstooth skirt and matching jacket. Chris McDonald, meanwhile, has not changed markedly since his days playing the film's iconic antagonist Shooter McGavin. Now 70, Chris was sporting a very similar 'do' to the one he had in the comedy juggernaut, only now with a greyer hue. Speaking about the anticipated sequel, the trio admitted they weren't trying to break new ground, but rather play up the nostalgia angle. The sequel comes almost three decades after the original film debuted.
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
Under the Bridge review – this true-crime drama just doesn't feel right
Occasionally, mean girls turn murderous – very occasionally, though, this rarity offers no comfort to the victims' devastated families. Such was the case in 1997, in Saanich, British Columbia, when 14-year-old Reena Virk was beaten by six teenage girls and killed by another and a teenage boy. Under the Bridge is an eight-part dramatised version of this true story, based on the 2005 non-fiction book about it by journalist Rebecca Godfrey, (played here by Daisy Jones and the Six's Riley Keough, showcasing her flinty strengths). Reena (a fine performance by Vritika Gupta, comprising all the overconfidence and insecurities that make adolescents so vulnerable even when they have no other aggravating circumstances to contend with) is a troubled teen. She is banished to all sorts of peripheries by her race (her father Manjit, played by Ezra Faroque Khan, is an immigrant from India, her mother Suman, played by Archie Panjabi, Indo-Canadian) and her religion (Suman is Jehovah's Witness among a primarily Sikh community within an overwhelmingly white area). So the allure of the tight-knit gang of girls from the local group home is strong. The gang is led by Jo (a fantastically chilling, dead-eyed Chloe Guidry) and her second in command Kelly (Izzy G), who are fascinated by the mafia generally and John Gotti in particular. For those of you who have never been a teenage girl, this is not as odd as it sounds. Loyalty is everything. When Reena, in revenge for not being allowed to go to a party, steals Jo's address book and rings round her contacts spreading gossip and seeding rumours about her, her fate – did she but know it – is sealed. She is invited to the party after all, and never comes home. Her family suffer the police indifference to her disappearance for days. Reena may not quite be one of the 'Bic girls' – the nickname Jo tells her the police have for those in foster care 'because we're disposable' – but she is close enough. Only policewoman Cam, another outsider – an Indigenous woman adopted as a child by a white family who are depicted as casually racist without compunction – eventually takes the time to look for the missing girl. She hears talk of a fight near the town's bridge, jangles a few weak links in the local teens' interconnected mass of loyalties, takes a look at CCTV and timelines, then gradually begins to piece together the awful truth. So, too, is Godfrey slowly forced, as her bond with Jo grows and her investigation deepens, towards belief in an almost incredible truth. She tries desperately to understand, to find the humanity in the actions of those who beat Reena so horribly and those who then drowned her, not least to try to absolve herself of her own past misdeeds. But it is something vanishingly rare, this degree of violence from girls against one of their number, and Under the Bridge can only ask whether there are some things beyond understanding and beyond forgiveness. Over the eight episodes, Under the Bridge covers its ground meticulously. It is carefully even-handed, non-exploitative (it does not linger on the violence, or depict much of it visually) and relentlessly sober. Racism and classism are all examined as contributory factors as is the emotional deprivation suffered by those in care. The simple chaos of the overwrought teenage years, and the influences that will rush in to fill the voids are given their moments in the sun. There is no winning, of course, with the telling of any story based round this kind of horror. The above approach is a noble and worthy effort by all involved. But noble and worthy does not, alas, scintillating television make. The two episodes available for review fairly crawl by, with no sign that things are due to pick up thereafter, thanks to a fairly blunt script ('The devil is working inside Josephine Bell … They have nothing. Reena has everything. They want to destroy it,' says Reena's uncle, putting him apparently also several dozen steps ahead of the police at this point.) Keough is always worth watching but she has little to get her teeth into here and Godfrey's quick, apparently thoughtless enmeshing with the gang does not ring true. Several badly demarcated flashbacks to different points in the history do not help either. Were the girls suffering mental health problems? Were they immoral? Or just at that particular time, in that particular formation and gathered around that particular poor, misfortunate child, dangerous to know? I'm not sure whether six more industrious episodes will get us any closer to finding out. Under the Bridge aired on ITV1 and is available on ITVX.
