We got a chance to speak with the makers of the Netflix Series, “When They See Us”, a retelling of the story of the Central Park Five.
In April of 1989, five teenage boys (four African American and one Hispanic) were arrested near New York City’s Central Park and charged with rape, assault, and attempted murder. But the boys who spent years imprisoned and became known as the Central Park Five didn’t do the crime. Now thirty years after the case first created a media frenzy, Academy Award-nominated director Ava DuVernay, along with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films have joined with Netflix to create a intimate retelling of the boys who became men while imprisoned and were later exonerated in 2002 in a four-part limited series titled ‘When They See Us’. DuVernay and Winfrey collaborated with Executive Producers Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King from Participant Media, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh from Tribeca Productions, and Co-Executive Producers Robin Swicord and Amy Kaufman. The series features award nominated and winning talent including John Leguizamo, Niecy Nash, Michael K. Williams, Blair Underwood, and Vera Farmiga, with a number of talented young actors including Jharrell Jerome who starred in the Academy Award-winning film Moonlight who takes on a leading role in the series as Korey Wise, one of the Central Park Five.
On Monday (May 20th) Ava, Oprah, fellow co-executive producers and the cast which included the aforementioned as well as cast members Christopher Jackson, Joshua Jackson, Omar J. Dorsey, Famke Janssen, Aurora Perrineau, William Sadler, Kylie Bunbury, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Storm Reid, Dascha Polanco, Chris Chalk, Freddy Miyares, Justin Cunningham, Ty Jones, Reece Noi, Alexandra Templer, Ethan Herisse, Caleel Harris, Marquis Rodriguez, and Asante Blackk came out to the famed Apollo Theater in New York City to premiere the first half of the series to the world. Felicity Huffman who stars as prosecutor Linda Fairstein was not in attendance. The men whose stories inspired the series: Raymond Santana, Jr., Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise also appeared front and center stage getting the recognition and applause for their strength and courage to share their stories. Gayle King, Selenis Leyva (Orange Is The New Black), Antoni Porowski (Queer Eye), Dapper Dan, Rev. Al Sharpton, Brett Gray (On My Block), Carrie Preston, and Jenn Lyon were also some of those who came out to watch the series at the premiere.
The Knockturnal: Can you tell us what it was like working with Ava on bringing your story to life in this series?
Yusef Salaam: She wore a shirt once that said “I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams”, and I can tell you first hand that is an absolute truth, and that statement doesn’t even do justice to the beauty that Ava is. I mean she took this story and other stories just like it and turned it into magic, turned it into a change agent, allowed it to speak for itself and to give us our lives back and really have it become a living legacy of sorts. I’m so honored and I told her I’m so thankful that she protected us. We didn’t know that she was gonna be able to protect us in this story and treat it in the most proper way. Very powerful.
The Knockturnal: What was something about your story that you wish could have been included in the series but didn’t get included?
Yusef Salaam: The only thing I wish that could have been included was maybe my rap song that I sang right before they sentenced me. For me, that was a very powerful moment, but I know everything can’t be told but maybe for the next iteration of whatever happens that piece will be there.
The Knockturnal: How did you prepare for your role?
Blair Underwood: Talking to this man right here, Yusef Salaam. My character was the defense attorney that represented Yusef. My first thing was to really try to understand my character Bobby (he had passed away) and their relationship; who Bobby was, who Yusef was, and what their dynamic was with Yusef’s mother who was very much involved in the court case.
Niecy Nash: I prepared for my role by getting my hands on all the material I could. I watched all the video I could find and then I had the opportunity to speak with the woman I play, Delores Wise and her son Korey. Ava made sure we had everything we needed.
Michael K. Williams: I had the pleasure of speaking with Ms. Linda McCray and it was after my conversation with her that she gave me all I needed to hear on how I was gonna approach Bobby, which was not to make him appear like how he looked on paper like ‘oh when the going got rough he split’, there was something deeper behind that and I chose to go deeper and explore that.
Marsha Stephanie Blake: I spoke with the woman I play, Ms. Linda McCray. We also read I don’t know, 1800 pages of court documents and personal recollections. It was a lot of reading in addition to reading the scripts. But the most special thing for me was to get the chance to speak to Linda and Antron on different occasions. But mostly to Ms. Linda who, in life, was a very very private person (she’s since passed). In her life, she did not want to revisit this stuff, and the first thing she said to me in our conversation was I don’t really like to talk about this stuff. But she did, she trusted Ava with the material and she knew that Ava was gonna respect her story, and then subsequently because we were the vessels she ended up trusting us. But it was based on her trust of Ava.
Alexandra Templer: She (Trisha Meili) didn’t come out to the press until twenty years after the fact. So I didn’t have any kind of current source material to pull from so everything I pulled from was kind of interviews with her twenty years later. I read her autobiography and I watched every interview that she ever did. It’s difficult trying to get to know someone twenty years after the fact. But I really like her book, I really felt her presence through that and I understood the voice she gained through momentum after handling that trauma for so long.
The Knockturnal: Blair, what was your first reaction when you first heard about the story of these men and what happened to them?
Blair Underwood: I hope this is not true. My overriding sense was I hope this is not true.
The Knockturnal: Describe what it was like working with Ava on this project?
Alexandra Templer: I think she’s one of the most supportive, intentional directors I’ve ever worked with and one with the greatest integrity I’ve ever witnessed. I got out of grad school and this was my big job and I just feel like she held my hand along the way in a way that was not infantilizing but in a way that was like ‘I got you and thank you for your participation in telling this kind of story’. The thing I’m most grateful for is her having the men be such a big part of this story and having them all on set and having them at the first read, and being able to talk to them and having them be a fundamental part of the creative process. To me, I don’t know if other directors would have seeped their input this much into a creative project, but she did and I think that’s why it is what it is and has the message that it has.
The Knockturnal: Although it has been thirty years since this injustice happened, situations like what is depicted are still occurring today. What more can be done, especially how can mothers prepare their sons who might find themselves in the same predicament?
Marsha Stephanie Blake: I think it’s sad that mothers of color are forced to kind of delve into this thing that you don’t think of as apart of motherhood. Like okay, now as a mother of color I have to go and figure out how the criminal justice system works because my child might get caught up in it and I will have to know these details. It’s such an insane thing to ask a mom to do on top of all the regular mom things we have to do, but it is a reality. We have to educate ourselves, we have to be our own advocates. We can’t depend on others to save us or advocate for us we have to take the responsibility in ourselves. It’s tragic but it’s the same as telling a black kid the rules are different for you. The rules are different for mothers of color as well.
The Knockturnal: Niecy, you’ve been working with the Innocence Project for a while now, can you speak on what they are doing to help men who are in circumstances similar to what the men of the Central Park Five were in?
Niecy Nash: They advocate for you, they try to make sure you have all the information and all the resources you need if you’re incarcerated and also once you get out, and not just for the person but the family as well.
The Knockturnal: If you had any words, in particular, to say to the Central Park Five, what would they be?
Alexandra Templer: I was very nervous to meet them the first day because I play a victim of a crime that changed their lives forever. I remember Ava kind of took me by the hand the first day of rehearsal and introduced me to them and they gave me a big hug and I was shaking because I was like in a weird way, why do I feel responsible for what happened to you. They’re just incredible people to face their story and use it in a way that’s changing the world. They were some of my favorite people on set. They were super, incredibly smart and incredibly funny. The way they handled their story was delicate.
Blair Underwood: What I have been saying is God Bless You, for enduring and surviving and now thriving in life and to be here on this day to be able to tell their story to the world. They did a documentary (Sarah Burns, Kenny Burns) but to be able to have this other iteration of this story reaches people in a whole other way.
‘When They See Us’ will be available for streaming on Netflix beginning May 31st