Samuel L Jackson Going to List of Actors I Will Never Watch Again
Samuel 50. Jackson and Walter Mosley Squad Up for a Sci-Fi Fable
In a joint interview, the thespian and writer discuss "The Last Days of Ptolemy Greyness," their "fairy tale" well-nigh an old man negotiating dementia and family drama with the aid of a wonder drug.
Samuel L. Jackson made his name in the movies, Walter Mosley in literature. But when it was time for these two arts legends to interact, they knew television was the simply medium that would work.
"The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey," a new limited serial starring Jackson and written by Mosley, based on his 2010 novel, tells the story of an elderly Atlanta man with dementia and a family that wants his savings. But when it looks like all Ptolemy has left is to count his remaining days, two people modify the course of his life. I is Robyn (Dominique Fishback), a teenage family friend who decides Ptolemy is worth taking care of. The other is a neurologist (Walton Goggins) working on a new drug that will bring back Ptolemy's cognizance — but only for a short fourth dimension, after which he'll be worse off than e'er (shades of the Daniel Keyes novel "Flowers for Algernon" and its film adaptation, "Charly").
Prototype
In his newfound lucidity, Ptolemy comes to terms with events and people from his past, including the one true beloved of his life, a beauty named Sensia (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), and Coydog (Damon Gupton), a childhood mentor who left behind an unusual inheritance. Equally these figures come and go from his mind, Ptolemy also takes information technology upon himself to solve the murder of a dear nephew (Omar Benson Miller), a job advisable to Mosley'due south breadstuff-and-butter turf of crime fiction.
Jackson and Mosley were also executive producers on the series, which premieres Friday on Apple Boob tube+. The project was personal for both of them: Each has had loved ones who suffered from dementia. During a freewheeling video interview — Jackson was in London (where he's filming the Marvel mini-series "Hole-and-corner Invasion"), Mosley in Los Angeles — they discussed the fairy tale quality of "Ptolemy," why television was the best option for the project, and how the story jumped across the country from Los Angeles to Atlanta, among other subjects. These are edited excerpts from the chat.
Image
Who is Ptolemy Grey?
WALTER MOSLEY He's all of u.s. everywhere. This is a destination that either nosotros reach ourselves in our own experience, or with people that nosotros know and love and live with, as far equally aging, dementia and death. These things bear on everybody's lives. It'due south a keen affair to have Sam taking it on and bringing it to a neighborhood that other people don't seem to call back about very much.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON As based in reality as nosotros want it to exist, he's actually at the center of a fable. He's this mythical character that Walter created who has a real-life trouble at the beginning, simply Walter allows us to circumvolve back and meet a life well lived. Information technology's a fairy tale. In reality, at that place is no cure for Alzheimer's or dementia, but we go one, however momentarily, that allows him to be clear nigh everything that's happened in his life, in a flash.
How does the serial address the experience of dementia?
MOSLEY A lot of people volition encounter somebody who's experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's, and they retrieve, 'They're crazy.' But in reality, there's something really going on in there, no matter how far gone they are. We allow an audience to place non simply with the grapheme that Sam'southward playing, only with our own lives. That was what the book meant to me, to exist able to do that.
JACKSON Those of u.s. who have had to deal with that know that when those people are sitting there, they may not answer your questions or be nowadays for what you want them to be present for, because they're busy inhabiting something else that gives them solace in the lost space that they're in, or that nosotros call back they're in. But they may not be lost at all. They just don't bother with what y'all are trying to put on.
I talked to my mom when she had dementia and she'd be like, "You're disturbing me. Stop request me things that I'm supposed to know the answer to, or you lot think that I know the answer to, or that I don't desire to be engaged in right now." When she wanted to appoint, she engaged. And then this story touched me in a real place.
Image
And through the story, yous become to invent a cure, albeit a temporary ane.
MOSLEY That'due south the neat thing nigh imaginative creativity. You look at Jules Verne: He's the guy who invented the [electric] submarine, who invented the rocket to the moon. He invented all of this stuff in his imagination, and of class, information technology's stuff we wanted. I was reading the newspaper yesterday, and they said umbilical string stem cells have cured a woman of AIDS. This one adult female is cured, and they did it from umbilical cord stem cells. If you put the possibility out there, lots of people are going to be thinking about it.
Walter, you've worked in boob tube quite a bit past at present, including every bit an executive producer on the crime drama "Snowfall." Sam, you lot take mostly stuck to movies. What made Television set the right medium to tell the story of Ptolemy?
MOSLEY Tv has the potential to do some amazing things that are proficient for drama, adept for actors, and good for an audience to exist able to empathize and identify with characters who have real arcs of modify. We're coming upwardly on our final flavor of "Snow," and we're going to get to see how things are going to work out or fall autonomously. That'south what's been fun.
JACKSON There'southward a dandy satisfaction for me to have a grapheme development that allows an audience to go back and say, "OK, that'southward where he started. Oh, that'due south why he's this guy. Oh, that's why he treats women this way." We watched movies for a very long fourth dimension earlier we realized something similar "Roots" could come along and be a mini-serial. Of a sudden, boom, at that place's "Roots," and yous go, "[curse], that's the style to tell the story."
The novel takes place in Los Angeles, but the serial takes identify in Atlanta. Why the move?
JACKSON Georgia has amend revenue enhancement breaks.
MOSLEY Yes, information technology wasn't feasible to do information technology in Fifty.A. First, we were going to go to Atlanta and try to brand Atlanta look like 50.A. But Atlanta doesn't expect similar L.A.
JACKSON In that location's non one palm tree in Atlanta.
Did setting the series in Atlanta add anything thematically?
JACKSON There are certain elements of Atlanta that are historically ethnic to telling a story similar this. Everyone who's lived in any identify that's full of Black people will recognize this. How many white people are in this story? In that location's the doctor, and the nurse. A lot of people are going to look at this and go, "Where are the white people?" You didn't encounter them unless yous had to when I was growing upwardly in the South. In Atlanta, they had Black insurance companies, they had Blackness newspapers. Everything y'all needed, you could arrive the Black community. Y'all didn't accept to become exterior of it.
MOSLEY I really do remember that all of those things are trace elements that impacted the making of the serial, with the actors and the coiffure just existence in Atlanta. Nosotros would tell the story anywhere we were, simply making information technology in Atlanta was in itself an experience, and that experience had to impart some of its history to the serial.
Let's talk a footling about the collaboration between you two. Walter, why was it important to accept Sam onboard for this?
MOSLEY Sam is a great actor, but that's just a very small function of the reply to your question. I wrote the book 13 years agone. Sam knew the book better than I did. He'd say, "No, no. Don't you remember? Yous did this," and I'd say, "Oh, yeah. OK." He's as well an executive producer, and his commitment to the book and getting information technology made is why nosotros got information technology made. When I was shopping information technology, people would say, "Sam Jackson doesn't do television." Well yous're right, just he's going to do this. His delivery to it, his talent in doing it, his willingness to play a very different kind of part than he usually does and to make that work then beautifully — it was really great.
Sam, what is it nigh Walter's work that pulls you in?
JACKSON Walter is a very feet-on-the-ground kind of guy that understands and knows his characters and knows the environment that those characters are in. Environs is very of import when you lot're a reader. I read a lot, two or three books at a time. Descriptions and character development are very of import things, no matter what, and Walter has a command of those things that a lot of writers don't. I read bad novels along with good ones, simply I always know that I'thou going to get something very satisfying when I'chiliad reading a Walter Mosley book.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/arts/television/samuel-l-jackson-walter-mosley-ptolemy-grey.html
0 Response to "Samuel L Jackson Going to List of Actors I Will Never Watch Again"
Post a Comment