Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx Star in Wrongful Incarceration Drama 'Just Mercy' | TIFF 2019 - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson lead Destin Cretton's 'Just Mercy,' along with Tim Blake Nelson, Rob Morgan, O’Shea Jackson, Karan Kendrick. The group all came together for the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.

Transcript

00:00It's called Shuffle right there.

00:07If your cast had a theme song, what would it be?

00:10Yeah? Good question, Shay.

00:14You've been a DJ for the whole movie.

00:18It's amazing grace.

00:20I was just gonna say, because you played that so much.

00:23It's amazing grace. It's the grace of everybody here

00:26taking on this wonderful story,

00:29the grace of Bryan Stevenson, the grace of Walter McMillan

00:32and all of those guys who maybe they didn't even know

00:35that something like this would be in our future.

00:38Because what's crazy about it is that at any point in any time

00:42we could feel things slip away from when you're in a situation

00:48that you don't know if you're gonna get out of it,

00:50but the amazing grace of great people is always celebrated.

00:59Just Mercy is a movie about Bryan Stevenson,

01:04who's an incredible human being, a defense attorney,

01:07who started the EJI, the Equal Justice Initiative.

01:09And it takes place over a course of several years

01:13on one of his most famous cases of Walter McMillan,

01:16a wrongly convicted man of rape and murder,

01:20of heinous crimes that he didn't commit.

01:22And he gets them exonerated.

01:24Along the lines, you meet a few inmates

01:27that he had to take on early on in his career.

01:30And yeah.

01:32Is that a good element of pitch?

01:33That was good.

01:34Kinda. It was a little rough around the edges,

01:36but we got there.

01:37High five.

01:38We got it. I wasn't ready.

01:39Let's go to the score.

01:40I wasn't prepared.

01:41Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten! Ten!

01:44I remember when I learned about it,

01:46because I was with Destin,

01:47we were kind of just talking about the state of the world,

01:50and I was talking about just feeling like I wanted to do more,

01:55and he was like, oh, you should read this book.

01:57And the book just was hard for me.

02:00It just hits in waves of knowing that I needed to finish it

02:04and feeling so much pain while reading it,

02:06and it really stayed with me.

02:08I think it's, especially right now,

02:10it's so easy to just get depressed

02:13with how much problems there are in the world

02:16and feel like, oh, there's nothing really I can do,

02:19so I'm just not going to do anything.

02:20But the life of Bryan Stevenson

02:23and what he has proven to me

02:25is that we can make a difference.

02:28And it's incredible the amount of change

02:32that that one man and the team that he has created

02:36has done in this country already.

02:39And I'm so excited to see what he's going to do next.

02:43When I saw the first picture of Minnie McMillan,

02:46I felt like I knew her.

02:48I felt like in her I saw my grandmother immediately.

02:51And so being from the South,

02:52there was an experience that I absolutely understood.

02:55So allowing her to live in all of those moments,

02:58that's what I was trying to do

03:00and to best serve her experience.

03:03When I read the script,

03:05it was so unbelievably humbling

03:07to be asked to be a part of this project.

03:11And yet the character is really quite an extreme person.

03:18And so it asked for a level of characterization

03:21that is anything but humble.

03:25And so it was really about finding that balance

03:30to keep the pyrotechnics down

03:35but still be honest to who the guy was.

03:37And that was a really interesting balance to try and achieve.

03:41I don't know, for me, reading up on Anthony,

03:45Anthony Ray Hinton and everything he had to go through

03:48for him to just be cutting the grass for his mom one day

03:52and then to get picked up and to be accused

03:55and put on a death row for a murder he didn't commit.

03:58Sixteen years in, he got a ballistic specialist

04:01to prove that he didn't do it.

04:03And all he had to do was have any judge in Alabama

04:06look at that report.

04:08And they didn't for an extra 14 years.

04:10And he had to lose his mom.

04:12And for somebody to have that much taken away,

04:15I wanted to give something to him.

04:17So it was important for me to embody Anthony.

04:21And he's a joyful man.

04:23He likes lifting people's spirits.

04:25But it's just a certain feeling you get when the cell doors close.

04:30Even on set, it's just that quiet on set.

04:34It's just a feeling that blankets over you.

04:37And so you've got to harness that and realize what you're there for.

04:41One of the lines that resonate with me, I believe you have,

04:43is watching a river full of people drown and can't do nothing about it.

04:48You know, it's like that kind of attitude towards our justice system

04:52on the outside looking in blatantly on how it disrespects,

04:57you know, if you're poor and innocent, you're way more guilty

05:00than you are if you're rich and guilty.

05:04You know what I mean?

05:05If you're a teenager being accused of stealing a book bag

05:09and you sit in jail for three years without no trial,

05:12then you're a college student, rape a girl behind a dumpster,

05:16and you get six months probation because they don't want to mess up your future.

05:20What kind of justice system is that?

05:22And hopefully with this movie we can create that kind of dialogue

05:25that we can move towards some healing

05:27and actually get a real justice system in place, you know?

05:30Peace, you know?

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx Star in Wrongful Incarceration Drama 'Just Mercy' | TIFF 2019

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