WATCH: The Stars Of AppleTV+’s ‘Dope Thief’ On Building Chemistry On-Screen

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Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura take the lead in this explosive new thriller.

Transcript

00:00You're good, they don't remember your face.

00:04Just a badge.

00:05Here in the 215, yous are going to get your head shot off.

00:10We went to the wrong house.

00:16My name is Oakley Jones with Essence, how you doing today gentlemen?

00:23What's going on?

00:24Doing good man, how are you?

00:25I'm good, I'm good.

00:26It's a pleasure to be speaking with y'all.

00:30So my first question is actually for you Brian.

00:33You and Wagner's character, you find yourselves in a really dangerous situation in the debut

00:38episode.

00:39What initially drew you to the role of Ray?

00:41Oh man, I thought about the characters in my career that I had played so far and like,

00:48you know, Ray was just something completely different.

00:51I mean he wasn't very far off, like all of my characters have a certain kind of connection,

00:56a certain kind of through line and a lot of that is grief, which I realized I was like,

01:02oh, most of the characters I play have dealt with immense grief and then I realized how

01:06common grief is and how often we don't really get to talk about it and how often it's not

01:10shown through black and brown bodies, you know what I mean?

01:14To the most, you know, the two groups that tend to go through the most grief, like, you

01:20know what I mean?

01:21And I really wanted to showcase that.

01:23I really wanted to see what that was like.

01:26Here you have this man who was put in a system that literally told him that this is who you

01:31are.

01:32This is how we're going to keep you.

01:33You can't be any more than that.

01:34And then he's trying to find a way to survive.

01:37And so there was a lot that I wanted to unpack.

01:40There's generational trauma.

01:41There was the father-son dynamic that I wanted to open up, but I also wanted to explore the

01:47relationship between these two men and what that friendship looked like.

01:50They have literally been friends since they were 15 years old in a system, like they were

01:55literally in the system and then spit out into this world and told, go and be men, survive

02:00however, however you can.

02:02And I really wanted to crack that open.

02:05A big part was also the script.

02:06You know, Peter Craig wrote something incredible.

02:09Not only is it gritty, not only is it violent, not only is it like a thriller, but there's

02:13so much humor at the same time.

02:16And then it was set in Philly, which I was like, oh, I absolutely want to explore what

02:21that is because I found over my career, I've been playing these men who were always natives

02:26of the place and always stayed put in that place.

02:30They never ventured out or never felt like they could break the mold of the cities that

02:34they were living in.

02:35But the cities also created their own little prisons for them at the same time.

02:39And there was just something about that that really appealed to me.

02:42And I knew it would push me to my limit in a great way and, you know, and then you get

02:46Dope Thief.

02:55The onscreen chemistry was easy and fast.

03:00You know, I connected with Brian like immediately.

03:02I love him for life and we were very connected since day one.

03:08And that was very important because I was I was I got on the show very late.

03:12I was I was someone like I spoke with them like on Friday and I was shooting this on

03:17Monday.

03:18So Brian was very important for me, like to the way he received me as a colleague, as

03:24a friend, as an executive producer.

03:26It was just amazing.

03:28Took care of me from day one till today.

03:32And the dynamic between the characters is amazing because they are very different.

03:37And that is like something to say about about Peter Craig's writing.

03:42It's it's they're very different.

03:43The dynamic is very interesting because Ray is sort of the alpha in the relationship,

03:50is the one who's really trying to hold everything in his hands and taking care, control everything,

03:56taking care of everybody.

03:58And Manny is just such a vulnerable and emotional character, a person that's really only trying

04:06to think of normalcy.

04:07Yeah, yeah.

04:09To evade that situation, to get out of that cycle of of of violence that they know since

04:14they were they were they were teenagers.

04:17So and and that dynamic is also great in terms of of comedy, because that gives us like a

04:25lot of room to be funny because they are so different, like those those clowns.

04:30One of them is one of the juggalos, the other one is strong.

04:36And so these differences, I think that they're bad at it.

04:39That's the thing is like they're bad at their scam, man.

04:41Like we opened the show watching them go in and not really even knowing exactly what is

04:47going on.

04:48And and it's also you can see that it kind of came out of necessity.

04:52Like I remember being like, why don't they just have jobs?

04:54Why didn't they go and get on?

04:56All right.

04:56Like the into into the world's eyes, they're convicts, they're ex-cons.

05:00Why would anyone want them to be?

05:02And so like you see them coming up with these schemes to to survive out of necessity, but

05:07also not knowing any other way out.

05:09And in that you kind of find the humor.

05:11You have to find the humor in that because it's like these situations, if you didn't

05:15laugh through them, what was the point of even being around?

05:17So, you know, and I think a lot of that hinges on the love and care that they have for each

05:23other.

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