gq.co.za September 2019 / 83
‘These stories have the opportunity to not just
shape culture but shift the way we think’
a couple of days ago, watching
the cut before it was finalised.
Chris Chalk: At the lunch
we had, Dr Yusef Salaam and
I immediately started vibing.
I was like, ‘Oh, we’re like the same
human being!’ He’s so driven.
Prison didn’t hurt his mind. He
had such a strong sense of family
inside of the prison, because of
his religion and because of his
mother. And I’m such a mama’s
boy as well, so I was like, ‘OK!
I can honour you.’ Being able to
have conversations with him has
been extra ordinarily useful and
calming, and I was like, ‘I feel
like I’m equipped to do this.’
GQ: There’s a lot that’s
covered in this series that
must connect with your
own experiences as men
of colour. Was it hard to
take the characters home
with you, to live with this
material off set?
Jovan Adepo: It’s hard to
completely get rid of all the
material; it causes you to
look at the world differently
as you step away from set.
Justin Cunningham:
I don’t know if purposefully or
accidentally, but I always take it
home. I’m always trying to work
through what is on the page.
I think, for me, although it was
extremely terrifying, I do believe
that I learnt so much.
CC: I don’t have to endure what
these men had to endure. I get to
pretend to endure it, so taking
that home for a couple of months?
I’m gonna be OK.
ADV: It’s been a challenging
few years. Going from Selma,
directing beatings and murders, to
13th and thousands of hours of
racist, violent footage. I wanted to
take a break and make little black
girls fly, and I did that for a bit.
But for some reason, I’m drawn
to telling these kinds of stories.
I think they call it “social-justice
filmmaking,” whatever. These
stories have the opportunity to
not just shape culture but shift the
way we think about each other and
the way we think. It’s race work,
and through that, the privileged
and the allied may be educated.
We’re always hearing about
representation, but inherent in the
word “representation” is having
to assert who you are. You have to
represent who you are.GQ: Ava, why did you
choose to name the project
When They See Us?
ADV: It had a working title of
Central Park Five, which is what
a lot of people still refer to it as.But I wasn’t interested in assigning
a name that was given to these
men by the state, really, and by
journalists. It was a moniker that
I felt further dehumanised them.
I want you to know their names,
and I want you to see them. I want
to talk about their case, but I also
want to talk about the overall
landscape and culture in which
their case can exist.
So by redefining the scope of
the story so that it wasn’t just this
hashtag, I’m hoping that it allows
us to see different layers of the
narrative and to look at each man
individually. It was important
for us to show that Kevin played
the trumpet, that Antron played
baseball – and to show that Yusef
had a mother who wanted him to
be home at a certain time. So it’s
the beauty of the specificity of
each of the men and each of the
boys that I hope will elevate this.
Really, it’s not a crime drama, it’s
a family drama. One that hopefully
puts a human face on the overall
epidemic of police aggression and
mass incarceration.
JA: People understand that the
court system is still highly flawed,
and so is law enforcement. When
something like this comes out,
people have a tendency to pick
sides. I think it’s less about picking
sides and [more about] just findinga collective solution to the problem.
JJ: A major problem in [America]
that a lot of people my age aren’t
aware of is mass incarceration.
All my homies see jail as a place
of ‘don’t go there, don’t get there,’
but they don’t realise that it’s
sometimes not your choice.
Sometimes it’s not up to you. This
is every day. This [series] is not just
them. It’s their story, but it’s also
so many other men’s and women’s
story. I think art needs to go in
that direction: showing what mass
incarceration does. I think When
They See Us is going to show the
heart it takes for somebody to go
through prison.
Freddy Miyares: This isn’t an
isolated incident. This happens
so frequently. Not only were
these individuals affected; it was
their families and, moreover,
their neighbourhood. This has
a rippling effect. Some of their
neighbours thought that [the
boys] were demons and blamed
the parents for raising demons,
because they fed on what the
media was giving them.
JC: I think these stories are being
told more today, but I feel like still,
a lot of times, people don’t hear
them or see them. What I hope
for is that people truly educate
themselves about how they feel,
what they feel, why they feel it.
This is a real story. How do we
create a society that cares about
what happens to people?
ADV: I think when you see the
stories of these men, hopefully,
most people will be called to some
kind of action.