Superfly follows a young career criminal Youngblood Priest who wants out of the Atlanta drug scene, but as he ramps up sales, one little slip up threatens to bring the whole operation down before he can make his exit.
We caught up with actors Trevor Jackson, who plays Priest, and Jason Mitchell, who plays Priest’s best friend and partner Eddie. The actors talked working with Director X, their character’s arcs, and of course Superfly.
The Knockturnal: So in the movie, we a see a very entrepreneurial Priest, if you guys weren’t acting what kind of businesses would you be running?
Jason Mitchell: A trucking company probably.
Trevor Jackson: I think I’d wanna be like a veterinarian with animals, caress them, except tarantulas, don’t like tarantulas at all. Spiders no, but animals, dogs, llamas, giraffes, you know.
Jason Mitchell: Animals that you feel like have a soul.
Trevor Jackson: Yeah, that I feel like won’t try and suck the blood from me.
The Knockturnal: Talk about working with Director X
Trevor Jackson: It was great. I love his attention to detail. I like his vision. I like his ability to allow us as actors to have creative freedom of our characters.
Jason Mitchell: Right. He did tell us, like look, I gave you like this little baby handbook on what I expect out of the character. Like I’m giving you all the facts about this person and then just go there and figure it out from there. You know everything wasn’t even scripted that we did, but they kept a lot of the stuff that we just threw in because we were all on like one page.
Trevor Jackson: That driving scene was probably one of the funniest scenes because we were really like half asleep shooting that we’re driving there, like bro just come on.
The Knockturnal: Fashion’s such a strong point in this film, how did that incorporate in your performance? How did you take that with fashion?
Trevor Jackson: I thought the fashion, for me, it was really important. I wanted to always kind of not be so much of anyone else, but not in a flashy over the top kind of way just more of like “hmm I haven’t seen that jacket before those boots are a little ya know a little nice,” you know what I’m saying? So I think it’s just part of his aesthetic, his super heroism-esque thing.
The Knockturnal: What resonated with you most about each character’s journey, you guys both have very interesting journeys in this film, what did you take away from those journeys?
Jason Mitchell: I feel like, you know, it’s a part of life where you have to realize that where you at on the totem pole a little bit, you know what I mean and I think that was Eddie’s thing the whole entire time you know what I mean so for me to at the end still have my like dignity and be the same person and all that it’s just yea I like that about him, I like that part.
The Knockturnal: In the film you touch on police brutality, you talk about why that’s so important in today’s world?
Trevor Jackson: Wow, I mean of course it’s one of the most important things. I feel like it’s one thing that hasn’t been fixed thats shown that it needs to be fixed, more than enough times for it to be fixed, so let’s fix it eventually please.
