Playwright turned Oscar winning storyteller Tarell Alvin McCraney, has joined forces with Michael B. Jordan and Oprah Winfrey to produce and debut his first television series “David Makes Man” which will premiere on Winfrey’s OWN network.
The show which stars Akili McDowell, a 16 year old who already has been establishing his acting resume with roles in The Astronaut Wives Club, stars in the leading role of David, a Floridian teen who is struggling to find himself, and dealing with the death of his closest friend and became a man while dealing with numerous outside factors such as growing up being raised by a single mom and trying to man of the house while serving as protector,and being a part of a predominantly white class as a black male and peer pressure. The cast also features Tony Award winning Emmy nominated actress Phylicia Rashad, and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre. Rashad, McDowell, and McIntryre, sat with the press at Discovery Communication’s New York office to discuss the series.
In not just being a project close to McCraney’s heart, but also reflective of his experiences growing up in Miami, Akili stated when questioned about working with McCraney to do his story justice, “Man I love me some Tarell. But really just me communicating with him daily because he was really hands on throughout this whole project with me and Nate and just everybody in the cast. Just me asking him what am I supposed to feel for this, what am I supposed to give off, what is the effect of me doing this right now what is it gonna have on the future. So him just really guiding me through the path is really what set me on course.” McIntrye who play’s David’s friend and classmate Seren added, “Tarell he has the answers for everything. So it was so easy to go to him and ask him about anything. It was just that simple, he was always there.”
Rashad whose appearance comes on the heels of her recent Emmy nomination for her guest role on ‘This is Us’, stars as David and Seren’s teacher Dr. Woods-Trap. “I’m really taken with this role, I’m very happy with this role because this role makes me [want] to pay homage to members of my own family. I had so many uncles and aunts who were teachers and who really cared about their students. When I was a student when I was in high school one of the things I observed and noticed about our teachers was that our teachers continued to study, and that is something that is a part of this character. So that’s a very real experience for me. And I attended segregated schools. Oh yeah, I went to school in Houston, Texas during a time of legal segregation, and so all of my teachers were African American teachers and all of my teachers had been teaching for a number of years and they all continued to study. And that is something that is part of, you see this as a part of her story. She is by training by education an anthropologist and her course is I would say is humanities because it’s history and culture combined with literature and she challenges her students to be creative with their assignments and she challenges them all.”Rashad said about what she took from her own life experiences and applying them to the role.
David’s relationship with his mother and younger brother are essential to his story, and Akili shared how his own drive mirror’s David’s saying, “Just how David wants to really just be the backbone and just be there for his mother and his little brother and he’s willing to do whatever he has to do, whether you think it’s the right choice he does it for survival. Every decision he makes he does it to thrive to be successful not only in school but at home too. And I just feel like that’s my life because I’ve always strive to be the best in anything I do whether it’s football or track, sports, acting, just really putting my best out there and giving it my all.”
In order to become a man, one must define what a man is. So just what is a man? Rashad told the press, “I would refer to my own father. My father was what was referred to as a man’s man. He was a man that men loved, woman adored him and men loved it. He was beautiful in every way. He was a man of faith. He loved his work, he took pride in it. He took joy in learning. He loved simple things and what he loved most of all were his children, and he would never leave his children.”
David Makes Man is on Wednesday’s on OWN.