Page 38 - Sharp Summer 2021
P. 38

 Barry
THE PAST FIVE YEARS HAVE BEEN GOOD TO BARRY JENKINS. After directing Moonlight (and winning best picture and best adapted screenplay at the 2017 Oscars) and 2018’s If Beale Street
Could Talk, he announced he would be taking on Colson Whitehead’s soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Underground Railroad as his first foray into television.
The series, which debuted on Amazon Prime in May, is a sweeping 10-episode arc that follows an enslaved young woman in Georgia named Cora (Thuso Mbedu) who, along with the also-enslaved Caesar (Aaron Pierre), travels across the American South on a literal underground rail- road — all while being trailed by a slavecatcher named Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton).
What Jenkins achieves with The Underground Railroad is a rare feat: an unflinching portrayal of slavery that doesn’t dehumanize its cast. Speaking to Sharp from his home in Los Angeles, Jenkins discusses the massive undertaking of adapting a part of his own history, editing
a television show during last year’s uprisings, and championing emerg- ing talent.
Jenkins
Is a True
Artist
The venerated director on his new series, mining his own history to make art, and why he doesn’t need to work with movie stars
by SARAH HAGI
38 SHARPMAGAZINE.COM SUMMER 2021
  GUIDE : A MAN WORTH LISTENING TO
  Photo by Atsushi Nishijima





















































































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