- 1 day ago
The show’s resident crooked detective is joined by a new partner with a dark secret
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00:00This character has such a rich backstory to be able to play with.
00:06I have to say, it is one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure to play, really.
00:15I mean, it's been so fun.
00:18And yes, Steve Harris makes it fun.
00:22Come back to me again.
00:23I keep telling you, it's always going to come back to me.
00:25Throwing it back to you.
00:26It's always about you, Steve.
00:27Let's be clear about this.
00:29Let's go ahead and let Essence know.
00:31Let Essence know.
00:32If we're going to be partners, it has to be 100%.
00:35Look, I know I'm in your neck of the woods, but this still is my goddamn case.
00:44Generally speaking, in most narratives, police officers are the good guys in the narrative.
00:50But in a sense, in this show, you guys are kind of playing the villains.
00:54What is it like to kind of, I don't want to say turn the narrative on its head,
00:58but how are you bringing death to these characters that are kind of seen as the bad guys in a crime narrative like this?
01:04I always think that the shows that show the police as the bad guys and the criminals are like the heroes of the show are always the most interesting to watch, right?
01:17I think it's so much more fascinating to get into the heads of, as you say, flip the narrative, right?
01:23But I think that what makes this show interesting is that you see our background and you see us as human.
01:34We're not just good cops and bad cops.
01:38We are people trying to figure out the job, trying to catch the criminals and trying to figure out life.
01:45I feel like, you know, there's so much for us to have to work through as human beings as well.
01:53I mean, that's the only way that makes this interesting, right, for us and the audience.
01:58I think it's a reckless state of affairs to be always giddy about the bad guys being heroes.
02:06I think that's a dangerous sort of way to be.
02:09Now, in particular for my character, because he's been a dirty cop, he's sort of violated the whole thing about what's going on.
02:16But when you really talk about good cops and then we're looking at the criminals as we're rooting for the criminals, I think that's a, I don't know if that's a path we want to take necessarily as a society.
02:31That's me.
02:31That's me personally speaking.
02:33As far as the show goes, I love every bit of it.
02:35You know, please ride with us, go with us, ride however you want to go with us, live with them as legends.
02:41They have sort of a folklore to them anyway if you really know the history about them and they still carry them.
02:46They were in songs and the whole nine yards and part of the culture in that vein.
02:52And police are always kind of looked at as the bad guys usually when the show is about the actual bad guy.
02:59So I'm good with that.
03:01I think that's exactly how it's supposed to be.
03:03I don't think you should like me for lack of a better term.
03:09I'm okay with that.
03:10I have no problem with that whatsoever.
03:12But, you know, in the end of the day, we are trying to do good in this particular thing.
03:23Year one, not necessarily so for me.
03:26But year two, I'm actually trying to do good.
03:28And then let's see.
03:29Makes sense.
03:31And I think, Steve, it's a testament to your acting that people really don't like your character.
03:36Really don't, no, they're taking it to don't like me.
03:40So, and I'm almost the same thing.
03:43I get it.
03:44I look at it as a compliment.
03:45You know, my career has proven that I can earn some of that.
03:48So I'm actually cool with it.
03:51I look at it in that vein.
03:52But, you know, every now and again, having folks just yell at you because of you or you'll see me beamed up in a heartbeat.
04:00I love the mean situation.
04:02I'm like, hold on, wait a minute.
04:04But I'm earning it.
04:05So I'm okay with that.
04:06Well, I was going to ask, how has the fan response been since season one?
04:11But you said people are screaming at you when they see you.
04:14Well, they do.
04:15I'm not the long-term one.
04:18I'm the one doing the, you know, they were okay with me, honestly, until I decided to turn against them.
04:24Now they look at it as something else, right?
04:25And they haven't, you know, because towards the end of the year, that's when the switch sort of flipped for me, you know, with them.
04:34And so, you know, it is, you know, it's what it is.
04:38I'm enjoying it.
04:40Don't get me wrong.
04:41But, you know, I'm, like I said, I'm perceived as kind of the bad guy in this scenario for trying to catch the bad guys.
04:49And I can get it more so with my character than Kelly's because I started out doing dirt.
04:55She started out a little different, you know.
04:58Now we do see in those first couple episodes a little bit of that bad cop still trying to peek out.
05:03What can we, well, yeah, always.
05:05But what can we kind of expect, as much as you can get into it, what can we expect from your character this season?
05:11I think you open him up a little bit.
05:13I think you're going to see that he has, like we all do, you know, we get in front, even right now, we get in front of this.
05:20And then when we turn this off, we got to deal with regular life.
05:23I think the fortunate thing about the show is that they're opening up that to you.
05:30You'll see me deal with my family situation.
05:34You'll see me have to deal with having a new partner.
05:38Like, I mean, this opens a whole new thing because that's a whole new facet that I have to deal with in a whole new way that I have to be in order to deal with it.
05:49So you get to open my character up a little more than just the guy that's kind of obsessed with trying to catch me.
05:55I mean, it's clearly there.
05:57I'm clearly part of Detroit.
05:59I want you to always feel like I'm part of Detroit, that that's ingrained in me.
06:03But part of that means also you have more than necessarily one or two levels.
06:09And I think that hopefully this season, by the end of the season, look, I still think you ain't like me.
06:16But, you know, you'll see more facets to me in my character.
06:22Absolutely. That makes sense.
06:23Now, Kelly, joining this cast and this show, what drew you to it after seeing season one?
06:29Like what made you want to be a part of this story?
06:32Me?
06:33I'm sure that was part of this story, you know what I'm saying?
06:39I'm sure that was part of this story, you know what I'm saying?
06:42Sorry.
06:43No, it's a fascinating show.
06:46And just, you know, knowing that it's based on history, like actual people, right?
06:51I mean, and it just highlights so much of actual history of what was going on in the 80s, in Detroit, the climate, and the entire United States, really.
07:03It's, I think that this show is, it's really, for me anyway, it was such an education.
07:12You know, getting to do all of this research and understanding what was going on in this time period and the struggles.
07:21I mean, goodness, there was so much going on coming on to this show, the best part was, you know, was, was doing the history.
07:31And then, and then coming on to this cast where everybody had already been established.
07:37All the relationships had been established, just like Jin, this character, right?
07:41She's coming in, she's brand new.
07:44But everybody on, in the cast and crew were just amazing, like opening up and, and, you know, and, and working with Steve was okay.
07:54That was, that was fine.
07:57Let's, you know, let's tell the people the truth now.
08:00That's the highlight.
08:01The thing is how we have so much fun.
08:04Don't even leave that out.
08:05That's the highlight right there.
08:07What are you talking about?
08:08Okay.
08:09The thing is how you are a new character this year.
08:11Can you tell us more about Jin and what she adds to the story?
08:15Oh, she's got such a history, such a dark past that she is trying to deal with.
08:25You don't get to know that much about her in the first couple of episodes, but by the third episode, you're, you're shocked as to how she deals.
08:35And that's what I love about this show, like getting to do this kind of, this, the research, right?
08:43Everything they write, I'm like having to research.
08:45I'm like, what, what's going on?
08:47What's going on?
08:47This character has such a rich backstory to be able to play with.
08:54I have to say it is one of the best characters I've ever had the pleasure to, to play.
09:03Really.
09:03I mean, it's, it's been so fun.
09:06And yes, Steve Harris makes it fun.
09:08Come back to me again.
09:11I can't tell you.
09:12It's always going to come back to me.
09:13Throwing it back to you.
09:14It's always about you, Steve.
09:16Let's be clear about this.
09:17Let's go ahead and let Essence know.
09:19Let Essence know the truth.
09:20You know what I'm saying?
09:21Let Essence know.
09:23You got it, silly.
09:25But Kelly, you did touch on it.
09:26And I guess I can't get too deep into foyer's territory.
09:29But you mentioned the way that Jen does deal with some of her problems.
09:33It's kind of a delicate topic.
09:34And it is something that people still kind of deal with in today's society, in day-to-day life.
09:39Or the never.
09:40Yeah.
09:41What did you, I guess, how did you approach dealing with that topic on this show and kind of introducing it to the lexicon of BMS?
09:49Oh, gosh.
09:49It's so hard to talk about it without actually saying what it is, right?
09:53It's a little difficult, yes.
09:54It is a little difficult.
09:55But, you know, I had to do a lot of research because even though it's something that we are hearing more and more about, you know, I actually called doctor friends of mine, psychiatrists, you know, old therapists.
10:12I've had a few.
10:13And asked them about this kind of situation and where this character would be coming from and why people deal the way they do.
10:23Because it's not something that's very obvious, right?
10:26But, yeah, that's the fun in what I get to do as an actor is delving into the research and understanding where people come from.
10:37I think that as actors, we have to understand so much about not just the good guys and, you know, like all the, you know, the easy stuff, but like understanding what makes people do bad things, you know, or harmful things even to themselves.
10:55I think it allows us to be just so much more sympathetic as human beings when we can, you know, dive into that and understand where people come from.
11:07Now, I guess for both of you, I wanted to ask, I feel as though in the previous season as well, but in this season, it seems that Detroit is almost kind of a character as well as a setting.
11:17You know, the socioeconomic things that are going on there and how it like informs the character's decision, you know, the cop's decision as well as the criminal's decisions.
11:26How did you guys let, what research did you do and how did you guys let that inform the way that you approached the story this season?
11:33Detroit is definitely a character and me coming from Chicago and understanding, you know, we kind of that Midwest cousin relationship we got going on and that migration from the South to hit these spots that people went through and why they went to those places and subsequently how we've been adversely affected by what went on.
11:55And one of the junctures of Detroit and the car economic thing bouncing off and doing that was also the drug game and what, and how the country decided to deal with that particular drug issue as a criminal act while we've done differently with other types of drug issues where we dealt with them more as a medical situation.
12:20So when you get that and you're from the Midwest, you can, you can sort of ride that.
12:26What I was loving about Detroit was how beautiful a city it actually is with the understanding of how dilapidated it has become.
12:35How it still steadily hasn't come out of the funk that it's had to deal with, but you can still see how it was built, how it was put together, how beautiful it is with the water and the, that you're a stone throw from Canada.
12:52I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing.
12:54And if you haven't, you know, most people haven't even been to Detroit.
12:57They just heard about it either from music or car industry or whatever, or the drug game.
13:03And so, but for me, it's, it's fascinating.
13:06It should always be a part, no matter what goes on.
13:09It's always a part of Meech and them.
13:11And they'll talk about it to the, to the blue in the face that they are proud of where they're from.
13:16And so I think, uh, as our show should be, uh, underlying, it should always be that Detroit flavor to it.
13:25And the show should be proud of what is representing them.
13:29Awesome.
13:30Thank you both so much for your time today.
13:32Oh, thank you.
13:34Love that essence.
13:36Essence?
13:37Make sure you give me my essence.
13:38All right.
13:39All right.
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