PRODUCTION NOTES

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD will premiere on May 14 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

It is 8pm on March 11th, 2021, nearly a year to the day that I walked off the set of The Underground Railroad unsure (and yet undeniably sure) that the virus ravaging the world had come to ravage our production. Tonight, I am listening to Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture because after 116 days of being relied upon to direct it is important to be directed, to give myself over to someone else’s doctrine.

The lecture, if you haven’t read or heard it, is a thesis, a grappling with everything framed through fable. In this fable, Ms. Morrison recites the story of a wise, blind woman visited by children. The children are holding a bird and have questioned the woman of whether the bird is living or dead. The children, in their cruel game, are here to test the blind woman, to smash away her clairvoyant esteem.

Ms. Morrison writes –

Finally she speaks and her voice is soft but stern. “I don’t know”, she says. “I don’t know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.”

Stepping outside the fable she has created, Ms. Morrison continues –

Speculation on what (other than its own frail body) that bird-in-the-hand might signify has always been attractive to me, but especially so now thinking, as I have been, about the work I do that has brought me to this company. So I choose to read the bird as language and the woman as a practiced writer. She is worried about how the language she dreams in, given to her at birth, is handled, put into service, even withheld from her for certain nefarious purposes.

As a student who believed this medium to be the vessel of their voice – to be language – I was forced to reckon with D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. In a time where information was beyond my control, I was sat down to watch this film and not told its true title (The Clansman), but instead made aware of the artistic significance of the work as a reasoning for the continued presentation (nearly a century forth) of its horrendous imagery. Of the significance of its language.

Two decades on, I remain a student but of my own volition. In the hundred years since its creation, The Birth of a Nation has seen the impact of its language rise and fall. As the vanguard of a new medium, its insistence on a radical new form has given it a speed upon which its demagoguery has metastasized and endured. In reflecting upon what we’ve done in transporting Colson Whitehead’s searing work from page to screen and the gambit set forth by Griffith’s magnum opus, I find myself returning to Ms. Morrison’s thesis: language. Whose language? What language? And to what purpose? From the beginning, I’ve feared this show. Before my second feature, Moonlight, ever premiered and through the production and release of my third, If Beale Street Could Talk, it has been the thing haunting me; stalking me, waiting for me in the shadows of dim rooms, at the edges of conversations. For so long, the notion of imagery such as those contained within this show has elicited feelings of shame, of trauma. The trauma arising from depictions of the American institution of slavery are so great that the very thought of creating such images is enough to bring forth this shame. And this shame is enough to mute, to taint those images to the point that the ethical questions regarding the efficacy of their existence potentially disallows their existence. In my ragged and incomplete sampling of peers and family, we simply are not ready to deal with these images. In my samplings, it was made clear to me that I should not make The Underground Railroad.

But if not now, when? As a student in this country educated in the public institutions created by the nation to educate and form its citizens, the imagery I speak of, if presented at all, is abridged, amended, curtailed and coded to protect the legacy that leads to the siren call of “making America great again.” Throughout my schooling in this country, if the topic of slavery was broached at all it was done so pithily, shoddily and, heinously, solely from January 15th to February 28th.

I’ve asked myself, who does this serve? The people clinging to States rights and monuments to men who fought to preserve the enslavement of my ancestors? For decades, the fight to correct the American historical narrative and create a more truthful history has been waged within the halls of academia and in the pages of literary works and journalistic periodicals. Between 1936 and 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) collected more than 2,300 interviews with formerly enslaved people. The memories of these octo and nonagenarians were crisp time-capsules of a history that had been purposely disregarded as they lived out the balance of their lives. Imagine having lived as an enslaved person and in your lifetime enduring half-a-century of a nation’s industrial proliferation without even cursory debate regarding the legitimacy of reparations for victims of enslavement… to say nothing of their descendants. In 2019, Nikole Hannah-Jones launched The 1619 Project on the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans’ arrival on our nation’s shores, a sweeping (and ongoing) endeavor that fills in redacted cavities of our historical record.

When I was a student, the WPA Slave Narrative Collection was not taught nor stocked in the libraries of my public school. If the state and local governments such as those in Arkansas, Iowa, and Mississippi (and counting) prevail, neither will The 1619 Project. The fact of both these withholdings from the students who will become the citizens shaping the future of this country weighs on me as I once again wrestle with the trauma and shame of creating images that speak to this dark history and whether that shame and trauma outstrip the efficacy of such images. To put it bluntly: Do we need to be reminded of the horrors of American slavery? Is it ethically or morally right to do so? And if so, why?

A possible answer was shown to me in a different form. In addition to The Birth of a Nation, the Film 101 syllabus included Schindler’s List, Night and Fog, and The Pawnbroker. The critical analysis of those films bridged out to The Diary of Anne Frank, Shoah, Come and See (and many others). There are differences here and I do not wish to compare or contrast the atrocities of the Holocaust with those of American slavery; the Holocaust occurred during a time in which the tools of reportage, documentation and archiving were plentiful and readily employed. However, it is not lost on me that roughly fifty years after the genocide that threatened the future of his ancestors Steven Spielberg made Schindler's List… while roughly fifty years after the conclusion of the genocide perpetrated by his ancestors, D.W. Griffith gave us The Birth of a Nation. Discarding Griffith’s racist agitprop and finding communion with Mr. Spielberg’s noble effort makes one thing abundantly clear: the trauma is real but… the shame is not ours.

Which brings me back to the question: “If not now, when?” As a nation, we are watching far more than we are reading. Despite the abundance of thorough, engrossing and illuminating work composed on the subject of American slavery by academics and journalists alike, the subject of reparations for the descendants of enslaved people has never been given due process and the slogan “Make America Great Again” both catapulted a trickster into the White House and emboldened his acolytes to wave the flag of the Confederacy in the halls of Congress and erect a hangman’s noose on the steps of the nation’s capital. If not now, when? When will it be appropriate to unravel the myth of American exceptionalism perpetrated through the manipulation of history and language by wielding a more truthful presentation of history through clear and unflinching language?

Language can never “pin down” slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity is in its reach toward the ineffable. – Toni Morrison

The ineffable. There are hard images in this show, images that speak forthrightly to the injustices inflicted upon my ancestors in the great making of this country... and yet they could never truly sum the hardness of this most horrible condition, the American institution of slavery. And while I have done everything I can to present them forthrightly and without over-sensation, the fact of their existence is a hard thing to bear. It is for that reason that alongside those hard images I have also strove to pay respect to softer ones whose existence is no less emphatic. Whether that be a formerly enslaved woman marveling at her sublime reflection in a mirror… or an enslaved man sitting on a porch mending a toy for the children he did not conceive but whom he will raise as his sons; that same woman crying with joy at discovering her ability to love and be loved, to make love, images that are testament to the deep wells of fortitude that had to have been present in order for the descendants of those people to persevere and retain agency that they may one day use language to create testaments in their ancestors’ image.

I must end this now. When I was a child, a teacher spoke the words “Underground Railroad” and I saw images of Black folks building and working and thriving on vessels of their own creation far beneath the ground. In that moment, everything felt possible. Despite the shoddy conditions of my impoverished life at the time and what felt like a constant closing, the entire world opened to me. In that moment, I placed no limitations on my ancestors and the magic they were capable of making. To this day, it is the one of the most whole feelings I’ve experienced in my forty-one years of life. For me, this show is a return to that feeling with the eyes of an adult in place of the innocence of a child, a memory of conjuring soft images where hard ones were stricken from the record, hidden from view. This balancing act, the tension between hard and soft images, the need to tell the truth without being devoured by the barbarity of that truth, is without question the hardest undertaking I have ever attempted in my creative life.

On a location scout, I stood in a cotton field and a wave of anger and sadness took hold of me. In that moment, I debated whether to film the field or purchase the land and burn it to the ground. I saw the conundrum as a thing my ancestors who stood in that very field could never have imagined and then… I realized they must have imagined it. How else could they have endured?

They imagined it the same as I had when I heard the words “Underground Railroad” and imagined them, without question or hesitation, piloting themselves through will and grit and savvy and might.

Here was that feeling again, all around me as I stood on blood-soaked Georgia soil listening to my ancestors. Something clear before solidified then –

This show… is for them.

Adapting Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel

Even before he made Moonlight, Jenkins had been interested in Colson Whitehead’s “The Intuitionist.” He wasn’t able to option it, so when he heard about a new Whitehead book, Jenkins’ agency secured him an advance copy of “The Underground Railroad” and adaptation discussions with Whitehead began prior to the book’s release.

“Before making Moonlight,” says Jenkins, “I said there were three things I wanted to do. One was to make a very personal story about where I grew up, that was Moonlight. I wanted to adapt James Baldwin and so, I made If Beale Street Could Talk, and then, the third one was that I wanted to do something related to the American condition of slavery. Colson created this book that, for me, provided the perfect way in being that it was very grounded in the actual history. But also, it had this very romantic and fantastical element to it that I thought, was the perfect pairing of my aesthetic and the subject matter.”

Jenkins goes on to explain, “I fell in love with this book because of Cora. Cora Randall is not a famous person, but I love that this random woman who suffered the unfortunate fate of being enslaved, has gotten to be the bedrock of this huge mythology.”

Jenkins' childhood memories were also a great motivation in making this series. “I remember as a kid hearing about the underground railroad and picturing Black people on trains underground,” he recalls. “And then, you learn no, it wasn’t actually Black people on trains underground. It was this network of houses and all this other stuff which is impressive and very cool and so amazing and yet, as a kid, it was almost like learning that the tooth fairy didn’t exist or learning that Santa Claus didn’t exist. And so, right away, when I first read the novel, I got that feeling again of being a kid growing up in the projects and imagining Black people on trains underground.”

Jenkins said he told Whitehead he wanted to adapt the book for screen as a series, not a feature. Whitehead agreed and supported Jenkins’ proposal to adapt the book over the course of ten hours. Colson explains, “I’d never discussed an adaptation with a director before, and by the end of that first talk was confident my book was in great hands. All the changes Barry made to accommodate the transfer to screen made sense when he told me about them – and worked even better when executed.”

The project marks Jenkins’ most significant foray onto the small screen (following directing an episode of Justin Simien’s Dear White People and a stint as a staff writer on Season 2 of The Leftovers). “I’ve never worked in television [as a showrunner] before and when I read this book, I thought this was a very unique way for me to enter this space,” he explains. “The Underground Railroad is a limited series and yet, it’s a roadshow. Our character, Cora, is going on a journey and, rather than watching a more serialized show where every episode you’re coming back to the same world and the same characters where the characters are evolving, in this series our main character and the settings are evolving alongside one another. Every time she enters a new state – a new physical state but also a new emotional state – Cora is taking greater possession of her inner self, yet her outer self is not quite free.”

Jenkins found himself spending a lot of time dwelling on his characters’ interior lives, their dreams and hopes. "There is a lot of character work around what these characters did," he says. "Some of them planted their own vegetables and tended their own gardens for sustenance. Some were blacksmiths and carpenters, who built things with their hands. But what I wanted to look at was how they loved, their community, their joys and loves, all of which had to be robust to survive.”

The series remains faithful to the timeframe of the novel, set in the years prior to the Civil War but incorporating elements of the near future. This lends itself to the feeling of fantasy and dream-like sequences that are present in some of the episodes.

Whitehead adds, “It was a weird feeling to write something – and then not know what’s going to happen! It was delightful. There are changes to the book, but they are entirely faithful. When I was writing, my motto was, I won’t stick to the historical facts, but I’ll stick to the truth. That’s what Barry has done here, been faithful and true to the book while adapting it to his own vision and to the medium.”

Building An Unforgettable Ensemble Cast

Gathering a cast from around the globe who can speak to the unique facets of the Black experience and bring that to the table offers a richness to the performances, and comradery on set.

Says Jenkins, “We’ve charted all these different swatches of color in the African diaspora in this show and in building the cast, I really sought that. On set, you could feel that we all had these different cultures we had been raised in and yet, in working on the material, there was this single place that we all felt connected to. To me, it’s one of the most successful things about the show.”

The main character, Cora, is played by Thuso Mbedu, who is from South Africa. With the entire series revolving around Cora’s journey, it was vital to find the right actor.

In casting Cora, Jenkins had an open mind. “I’m always looking for someone to show me who the main character is,” he explains. “I think the beauty of adapting a book is there are no pictures and so, I might read the novel and see Cora one way. You might read it and see her a different way.”

Whitehead adds, “I don’t see faces when I write, so I had no preconceived notions of what she might look like. Thuso’s command, presence, ability to transform in so many different ways – how could Cora be played by anyone else?”

Edgerton, who plays opposite Mbedu as Ridgeway, adds, “The whole experience of this telling of the Underground Railroad, lives or dies on Thuso, and it lives or dies on the audience’s connection with her.”

Mbedu had seen Jenkins’ films and was eager to work with him. She says, “From what I'd seen of Barry's work, I knew that he told a beautiful story and he was able to create a beautiful picture. It's nice to look at, but then there's an actual story in what he's producing. It's not just producing a story for the sake of a story, but he's saying something, he's commenting on something.”

For Ridgeway, the bounty hunter pursuing Cora, Jenkins wanted someone who had a very fully realized humanity, and he got that in Joel Edgerton. “Ridgeway is a very, very complicated character and I needed a very complicated man to play him. Joel is a wonderful human being filled with complex talents.” And he needed someone who would have good rapport with the sidekick kid, Homer. “Here is this, 30s, 40ish man, basically my Arnold Schwarzenegger in the show, my Terminator and he’s being trailed along by this little kid.”

For Edgerton, he appreciated the freedom he had with Barry. He explains, “Barry loves actors, and that’s being sort of proven on set. He lets you off the leash a lot. He watches what you do and when he sees something, he asks you to move in that direction maybe more, so there’s a certain freedom.”

On acting opposite Edgerton, Mbedu says, “Joel’s a fun guy to work with. I enjoy his process. He's a sociable guy naturally. Even on set, he's playful but you see him when he has to rise to occasion, you see him pull away. You see him work the process. And then when he goes in, it's just like, ooh!”

Homer was one of the more challenging roles to cast. “Homer’s just a boy and yet, carries the weight of so many very adult actions and inactions. And Chase Dillon, he walked in and he gave this audition and he put his little hat on, and I was like, oh, yeah, that’s the guy. And when he and Joel first met, when they got together, it was very clear, those were the guys.”

Edgerton echoes the rapport, “There was a really good spirit on set. I spent most of my days rousing Chase, and he spent most of his days doing the same back to me.”

Eleven-year-old Chase Dillon considers the Ridgeway/Homer relationship as a caring, familial one. He says, “Homer really cares about Ridgeway and they take care of each other, like they tie each other’s ties, they dress each other up. They do everything together and the mission that they’re on is trying to catch Cora.”

Whitehead says of Edgerton and Dillon’s portrayals, “Joel and Chase took the seed of the father-son dynamic that’s in the book and made it blossom. They materialized as the perfect duo, playing off each other wonderfully and mysteriously.”

The unique structure of the series creates the feeling of an ensemble cast led by Mbedu. Although some characters only appear for a short period of time, their presence is woven into the narrative of the series and resonates throughout. The two characters whose presence is particularly felt in this way are Caesar (Aaron Pierre) and Royal (William Jackson Harper).

In Caesar, Jenkins wanted someone who would leave a profound impact on the audience. He says, “Aaron is just the most amazing human being and maybe it is a bit manipulative because I wanted the audience to look into his eyes and when he’s gone, for them to deeply, deeply miss him, because the character Cora misses him as well.”

On casting William Jackson Harper as Royal, Jenkins recalls, “You read a novel and you hear the character’s voice in your head and from the moment that dude started talking, I was like, oh, that’s Royal.”

Wellbeing on Set

Jenkins was sensitive to the very real impact the subject matter would have on the cast and crew. Friedberg remembers that the first thing Jenkins said to the crew, the day shooting began was, “I just want to run a chill set. We’re going to be dealing with some hard issues. So, let's let the things we're upset about, be the right things to be upset about. And let's not ruin anybody's day.”

Amazon provided a therapist to the cast and crew on the ground, especially on days covering the brutality that took place during this time in American history.

Cinematographer, Laxton, was grateful for the therapist’s presence, even if he didn’t go to her. “For 12 hours a day you’re witnessing some pretty horrific things, while they are performed, they don’t feel like they’re performed sometimes. And to set yourself in that place for a number of months was hard.”

One of the hardest things for many of the crew to shoot and witness was the lynching and burning of Big Anthony. “We were in Savannah, it was probably 100 degrees, and we’re doing the most awful thing we’re going to do to a person on that day,” describes Dottie Starling, VFX supervisor, and I had to sort of talk about things that were very hard to talk to somebody about and to somebody it’s happening to.”

She continues, “And one of the kindest things, which makes Barry amazing, makes this project amazing, is that Barry said to the extras, listen, if it’s too much, tell me and I stop shooting, we walk away. It’s more important that we do this the right way and be considerate.”

Jenkins remembers a day where the therapist (Kim Whyte, who the crew affectionately call “Ms. Kim”) guided him off set so he could process his grief at what he was shooting. “I thought I was a tough guy and wouldn’t think I’d need Ms. Kim, but I certainly did.”

The cast appreciated the safe environment that Jenkins and team created on set. William Jackson Harper (Royal) says, “Especially during some of the more intense points of the story, it’s very important, I think, to be able to go into the scene and play it for real, but then, you know, when you come out of that scene, shake hands with people and realize that you’re in a safe space.”

Five States Shot in One: Georgia

The series was filmed over 116 days in numerous locations and cities in Georgia, including Savannah and Atlanta. After her escape, Cora travels from Georgia, to South Carolina, to North Carolina, to Tennessee, and then finally to Indiana. The challenge was telling a cross-country story while not leaving Georgia. Jenkins surrounded himself with a team he has trusted in the past on his features – cinematographer James Laxton, production designer Mark Friedberg, and costume designer, Caroline Eselin, to name a few. The Underground Railroad was different for this team.

James Laxton used various techniques to denote the changes in story location. “I applied different techniques in each chapter,” he explains. “One specifically was choosing different LUTs per state (story location). And LUT stands for Look Up Table. It’s almost like an Instagram filter. They change how colors are interpreted in the cameras. This also supported whether it be a certain palette that Mark and Caroline had chosen for the art department and costumes.”

“What’s lovely about Barry, and this is true ever since we started working together, is he has this lovely way of being specific in certain parts but also letting his collaborators have the freedom to develop their own ideas and then come back to the table with everything.”

It was important for Laxton when reading the book and initially in talks with Jenkins, that they convey a sense of scale. “From the beginning, my aim was to find a sense of scale, scope and mythology, because Cora’s journey is very long and arduous. It’s sort of like the Joseph Campbell kind of mythology of character because the story is so massive,” Laxton says.

According to production designer, Friedberg, it was important that every place seemed different in Cora’s journey. “How do you make something feel like a journey without going anywhere? How do you run in place and make it look like you've traveled a long distance?”

“Ultimately deciding to film it all in Georgia made us define our States differently, visually different, using a different vocabulary for each place, rather than just relying on the background. It affected the way we used palette, the way we used space and the way we chose locations.”

Explains Jenkins, “The tone of this series shifts. The book and the show are a representation of our main character’s state of consciousness. That’s why she goes from state to state to state and, the show, episode to episode, changes in the visual aesthetic. It changes in the sonic aesthetic. Just the feeling of it changes from condition to condition, from state to state and it creates this rainbow of tones.”

Hair designer, Lawrence Davis, adds, “Cora’s hair definitely tells where she's been or where she's going. As we see her from episode to episode, there's definitely a shift in her look.”

Caroline Eselin says, “With The Underground Railroad, every episode is probably a feature's worth of preparation of costumes, characters, shot lists, location sets. Its scope, its size, is what's different than what we've done before. But, what's not different is working with Barry - that sort of intimate collaboration you have with him. Barry is always accessible.”

One of the challenges in telling the story is time. “Our first big challenge was to figure out what periods we were going to be in. The book is sort of loose in period. You can't exactly tell where Cora is in time because of all these references of American history that's happening. But they’re in South Carolina, the Tuskegee Experiments that happened in the 1930s. But there's elevators and skyscrapers in South Carolina. The eugenics started really in the 1880s. Elevators and skyscrapers started in the 1880s.” says Eselin.

When Colson Whitehead visited set, he was welcomed by a sense of commitment that he found in every crew and cast member that he encountered. “I was struck by everyone’s kindness and affection for the book – if you’re going to devote years of your life to a project, you might as well like what you’re working on! I got the sense that they did, and it showed up in the sets and costumes and designs and a thousand tiny details. I also got the sense that everyone had a strong belief in Barry’s vision, which I’m sure was a blessing on such a complicated shoot.”

From Savannah to Atlanta to Stone Mountain (and many locations in between), the production had options for not only seasons, but also topography across the state of Georgia. Savannah had the marshy, low country look for the plantations, and Atlanta offered topography that included the mountains that were just north of Atlanta where the Valentine farm in for the Indiana episode was filmed. Stone Mountain served as the backdrop for key moments in the North Carolina chapter of the series.

Trains and Railroads

A lot of the series takes place on trains in 1850 that run underground. “Those don't exist,” says Friedberg. “They never did. Steam trains don't run underground.” In Savannah, Friedberg and the team found a train museum. “My idea was the way to solve an underground train station is not to build one underground, but to build the underground above ground, to create a tunnel that felt like it was underground and through the stations is how we connect to the above ground.”

“It was complicated,” Friedberg continues. “It's also not like normal walls that are rectangular shapes or things you can measure. Its rocks which we had to find local talent to be able to do that and paint to make them look real. And then the trains, we even worked on those as well, that the people at the Savannah Railroad Museum let us work with them to slightly modify the trains, both to make them period, but also to make them in keeping with our story.”

The stations at the far reaches of the tips of this network in the deep South, those were the most rudimentary. By the time the story and the railroad got up North to Tennessee, there was more sophistication - the station had a cappuccino machine and painted murals and tiled walls scripted as kind of a Parisian cafe underground. The large mural in the Tennessee station was created by an artist named Sam Messer. In the mural, many of the faces of the film crew can be seen.

Living Quarters on the Randall Plantation, Georgia

In telling the stories of the lives of the enslaved and where they lived, Friedberg wanted to make sure that the focus was not about purely the brutality of it, but was actually “About the way that the people who lived there brought or found crumbs of beauty in their life or culture in their life, or hope in their life, or belief in their life.”

The art department spent months creating their living quarters. The team found a piece of land near Savannah in Richmond Hills where slave quarters used to exist. The land had very old trees, some that were hundreds of years old. “We set our cabins into the trees, literally built them right around the trees so it looked like the trees grew up around them,” said Friedberg. On the land, the art department planted actual growing corn, cotton, wheat, and squash fields and also brought in livestock.

For the Black men, women and children in Georgia, Eselin tried to be as authentic and realistic with fabrics as she could, going as far as having some specially woven fabrics made. “We had some things made for the show such as a jean cloth, this cotton fabric we got made for Caesar’s shirts,” she says. “Jean cloth was really rugged and actually, we ended up using it in other places because plantation masters didn’t want to spend money on cotton in early years to give to their enslaved to wear.”

Eselin made a few dresses for Cora during the Georgia storyline. But it wound up being too many for Jenkins. “I think we had like, four dresses for Cora,” she said. “That’s too many. Barry was like, “Pull back! No, too many clothes! Too many things! Too many things! So, it was really about making sure we portrayed that desperation, that horror at the plantation.”

Griffin, South Carolina

On Cora’s journey, after her escape, her first stop is in a community that on the surface seems to be in another dimension, where Black people are allowed an education, have jobs and are given freedoms. However, we gradually learn that underneath the pristine Southern facade lies a form of eugenics where white people are trying to breed out Black people.

Jenkins explains, “When Cora arrives in South Carolina, now, we’re like technicolor. All the Black women have perms, they’re wearing these beautiful pastel dresses and yet, of course, just at the edge of the frame, something doesn’t seem quite right.”

Aaron Pierre (Caesar) says, “It’s a very exciting place for Cora and Caesar. They feel as though this is the definition of freedom. This is where the beginning of the rest of their life happens. But the longer they stay there, it becomes very apparent that whatever this is, it is not what true freedom or true liberation is. It’s sort of a false version of that.”

Transforming downtown Savannah into a dirt street complete with horse-drawn buggies was a huge accomplishment especially since it was filmed in a popular tourist town. Says Dottie Starling, “Mark Friedberg and his team did incredible work in Savannah, we changed the center city of Savannah and we put dirt in the roads. We made it look like it was the correct time period.”

In this chapter, Cora works in a museum where the art department created human dioramas of what maybe well-meaning white people would like to show the story of slavery. “But in fact, they're trying to whitewash that story,” continues Friedberg. “And, and it's an incredibly degrading experience for Cora who has to play a cotton-picking slave again in a glass box, that we designed to be a kind of terrarium diorama, so that there was sort of a cross between a zoo and a museum.”

With the costume design, Eselin’s first conversations with Jenkins were about treating the costumes almost like how a prison system would. She explains, “When Black women and men arrive in South Carolina, they come in their old clothes and they are issued new clothes. So, the women are issued an institutional dress and a day dress. And the men are issued a suit and work-wear if they work in a limestone quarry like where Caesar works.”

If Black people want to wear something besides the two dresses, they’d have to go into town to shop. There's the White Emporium and there's the Black Emporium. There are wage gaps, pay disparities for our Black population. And if they want to buy anything extra at the Black Emporium, they're most likely going to buy it on credit.

On Cora’s evolving look in South Carolina, Lawrence Davis explains, “I thought that not only was it a thing where we could try something different from the natural state of her hair we see in the first chapter, but South Carolina was actually a place where the women could get beautified in a different way. When Cora gets into the institution there, she is shown a different way of grooming. She’s forced to straighten her hair and she falls right in place with her look.”

North Carolina

As the story moves on to North Carolina, Jenkins compares: “It’s kind of like the diary of Anne Frank where our character is now closed off in this very small space and a lot of it is filmed in close-up. And yet, it’s a little bit of a horror story. There’s a little bit of Hitchcock in this, a little bit of Fincher thrown in.”

The design of the North Carolina world was the last thing the art department designed. Every episode had a town. “So how is each town different?” posits Friedberg. “We had to create a town for Griffin. We had to create a town for Indiana. We had to do a town for Tennessee. And that was a great way to chart a journey, to make it feel like you're going to different places. The place we ended up finding/making for North Carolina was a rectangular town with an open-air church in the middle of all the houses. Facing in, it's a religious retreat that we turned into a town.”

Eselin brings it back to the source material for North Carolina. “We looked at what Colson did in the North Carolina chapter of the book and were inspired by the Oregon Exclusion Laws in the early 1800s. And then also, there's a well-known autobiography called "Incidents of a Slave Girl," by Harriet Jacobs who hid from her captor in an attic for seven years in North Carolina from 1835 to 1842. That's where we took our year from, honestly, to set Cora in, in the town of North Carolina in the1830s. So, we looked at the roughness of Oregon at the time, and then we looked at religious symbolism in art as well as the fashion of the time. There was this massive, bulbous sleeve in women’s fashion which we used.” Additionally, for North Carolina, Eselin used rough fabrics - burlaps, and striated cottons, and rough linens, and rough wools.

Tennessee

“Hell is that dark neighborhood you know exists but avoid at all costs. So, of course, at midnight on Friday the 13th under a new moon, Cora has no choice but to walk through it.” – Barry

Eselin compares Cora’s journey through Tennessee to Ridgeway. “We were traveling through Ridgeway’s dark heart. And it really is kind of perfect. It’s Ridgeway’s story. It’s grounded in reality. He’s dragging Cora through his land, his heart. Tennessee is a very narrow, dark palette in place. It’s burning up there. There’s yellow fever everywhere. It’s a plague. It’s on fire and people are fleeing. And so, the people are shabby and withered and worn and desperate and desolate.”

For inspiration, the teams looked at dust bowl images in the 1930s and modern-day bleakness such as the California fires.

Hair designer, Lawrence Davis, went on to explain the thinking behind Ridgeway’s look during this chapter, “For Ridgeway’s character and what he's doing and how he's chasing Cora, it shows the intensity and the movement in his hair and it shows the intensity of what he's trying to do, chasing after her, going after her, this particular journey.”

Indiana

The train journey itself onto Indiana marked a significant shift in Cora’s journey for Mbedu. “From Tennessee to Indiana, to the Valentine Farm, it's this big majestic, beautiful train that's decorated and it's got portraits of African Americans and it's unlike anything Cora's ever imagined. I think that foreshadows or speaks to what she's going to see at the Valentine Farm, which is a whole new world.”

Indiana is where Cora’s journey comes to a head. Cora has been rescued by Royal (William Jackson Harper) and when they arrive home to the Valentine farm, she finds a world so safe and plentiful she struggles to accept it and her role there. Jenkins says, “Indiana is impossibly beautiful. It’s paradise.”

The Valentine farm is run and owned by free Black folk, who grow crops, but also have an extremely profitable winemaking business. However, some Indiana white people can't live with the fact that this successful African American community is living amongst them and a reminder of how maybe they're not quite as successful as they could be themselves.

“Working with background extras, seeing a bunch of Black people standing in vineyards singing and clapping and pulling grapes and drinking wine. I mean, it was just so—it was so fulfilling.”

Says Mbedu (Cora), “Valentine Farm is a picture of what the world could be for the Black body if they were allowed to flourish.”

William Jackson Harper likened Valentine Farm to ‘Black utopia.” He says, “We make our own wine, and we sell it to the people in the town or whoever else wants it, and it’s a successful Black-owned business.”

Laxton explains, “There’s something about that tension and that decision that the people of Valentine are going through that I felt was important to sort of sit back and listen to as opposed to being too aggressive with the camera in intimate ways that the autumn chapter was more about.”

We travel through regions with color as well. The palettes of each state begin in Georgia with “a very washed-out, rewashed, faded, dulled palette,” says Eselin. “And we get to South Carolina and it’s an explosion of color. Pastels and the social itself is pink and green and blues. It’s very different from Georgia and as we wanted it to be. And then we get to North Carolina and it’s a very narrow, dark world. And its blacks and greys and browns and, and these insane sleeves.”

Eselin focused on jewel tones for the Indiana costumes. “It’s full of these lovely prints. There was one dress that I found that unlocked the key to what the women would be in Indiana. And it’s called a wrapper dress or a chore dress, and you’ll see Gloria Valentine in this type of dress, and Georgina and Cora. And it’s the perfect kind of effortless dress to wear in the vineyard and on the farm.”

A Unique Collaboration to Create the Score & Sound of Cora’s Journey

Composer, Nicholas Britell, started his musical journey on the show early in production. “I was living with musical concepts for about 18 months, which for composing is a very long process.”

Britell continues, “I had read the book and knew that although this is the 19th century there are elements of fantasy and anachronisms. I had been thinking about the opening episode for a very long time as well as episode two where we go to South Carolina. In that episode, there’s a piece of music called Bessie that formed the starting point for when Cora is first walking down the main street. It’s almost a dream-like sound and that’s a musical universe that I did not anticipate at all when we first started.”

He and Jenkins found inspiration in sometimes mundane and non-musical sounds, but those that had a connection to the story. For example, a drilling sound that symbolized Black people digging the underground railroad, or the chirping of a cicada that the enslaved most likely heard while sleeping in their quarters. Jenkins would hear a sound, like the drilling, and run outside to record then send to Nick via text.

Britell says, “The drilling has a great bass sound, which I played with and bent. I think the drilling idea opened up a universe of exploration into nature and elemental forces. There was the idea of taking things like the cicadas and the sound of the air and insects and playing with those as well. What was fascinating was that some of these sounds directly inspired actual motifs in the music.”

“What is wonderful is the idea that some things are in sync, and then there are things that are in counterpoint. It’s discovering when and where those happen that is such a mystery. Over time, your senses change too, and you learn. Some of my favorite moments are when they’re in counterpoint, where you’re seeing one thing and you’re hearing something else. It’s that joining together that creates other meaning that maybe didn’t exist before.”

When working on Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry would often fly to New York City to work with Nick in his studio there, but due to the pandemic Nick relocated to Los Angeles to continue the journey of musical discovery and complete the score.

“We started going through all these field recordings and sounds and there was one of cicadas,” Jenkins explains. “Nick and I were always chasing things. We like to take sounds and break them. It was like, how can we break the sound of the cicadas. We just started, I don’t want to say chopping and screwing with it, but we started just slowing it down.”

Similar to the production and costume design, there were distinctive palettes for each place in Cora’s journey. Jenkins says that Britell evolved the music to align with her. “Cora is literally going into different states, states of consciousness, states of mind but actual states. And Nick took it upon himself to actually evolve, too, which is a lot of work,” says Jenkins.

Britell recorded the score over Zoom from LA with a London orchestra he has assembled over the years, led by concertmaster, Everton Nelson. He and Jenkins would meet early in the morning LA time to connect with the musicians at AIR Studios in North London.

In addition to the orchestral recordings, Britell incorporated powerful vocal elements into the score.

Britell explains, “Our featured tenor soloist was David Hughey, and our featured soprano soloist was Julia Bullock. Despite the challenges of recording remotely, their vocal contribution to the score has a tremendously evocative impact.”

An unexpected choice from Jenkins are the tracks played during the end credits of each episode, bringing the viewer right back to the present time.

“The needle drops at the ends of episodes came about organically,” says Jenkins. “I’m often listening to something during the prep and production of the films. In this case, it was the newest (at the time) Solange album ‘When I Get Home’ (chopped and screwed by Houston’s The Chopstars of course).

Jenkins listened to the album around the clock through the filming and editing of the show and in that time, “between what was in my ears and what was on the screen,” he says, “the lineage between the artists of today and the characters in our show became absolutely clear.”

“From there,” Jenkins continues, “it was about choosing tracks that supported, underscored or furthered the emotions just on screen. In the creation of these songs, the musical artists did not intentionally speak towards the lives of our ancestors (as far as I know). What a wonderful experience then to find them so clearly speaking towards the lives of our ancestors; for every one of the nine needle drops here, there were dozens of other tracks that would make wonderful fits. To me, the sheer volume of possible end credit tracks proves the spiritual connection between us and these characters (and through these characters, our ancestors) and the spectrum of their lives yearning to be explored. That Groove Theory’s ‘Hey U,’ released in 1995, could so clearly fit the heartbreak of a woman struggling to allow herself to receive love in a pre-Civil War America is some kind of magic.”

Chapter 1: “B.O.B.” - Outkast Chapter 2: “Runnin” - The Pharcyde Chapter 3: “Wholy Holy” - Marvin Gaye Chapter 4: “I Want To Be Ready” - Kool Blues Chapter 5: “Down By The Riverside” - Calvin Leon Smith (Jasper) Chapter 6: “Money Trees (Remix by DJ Slim K)” - Kendrick Lamar feat. Jay Rock Chapter 7: “I Wanna Be Where You Are” - Michael Jackson Chapter 8: “Hey U” - Groove Theory Chapter 9: “This Is America” - Childish Gambino Chapter 10: “How I Got Over” - Mahalia Jackson

Editor Joi McMillon on Shepherding Cora’s Story

Editors Joi McMillon and Alex O’Flinn were tasked with bringing the story together and weaving the disparate parts of Cora’s journey into an emotional narrative. In approaching the series McMillon, a longtime friend and collaborator of Jenkins, said, "I think there’s no point in telling the stories if hope doesn’t exist. When you follow Cora’s journey, at times it feels so devastating. And at times it does feel pointless, but she just has that will to survive." She further added, "I feel like Cora’s such a strong woman, but she has a vulnerable side. We give her that space to be both strong and vulnerable, both caring and giving, and sometimes selfish." Presenting Cora as a complex, three-dimensional character was a goal shared across production and a focal point of the editing process. "The pace of the editing throughout Cora’s journey kind of evolves, and one of the things that lends itself to the evolution of the pace of the episodes is the camera work that Barry and James designed,” said McMillon of her intuitive working relationship with Jenkins and Laxton. “I can always feel their intent in a scene just based on how they shot it. Oftentimes I can tell, oh, this is supposed to play out a little bit longer, they’re holding and they’re letting her take in not only her space but the information that she’s receiving."

The space that McMillon provided Cora through the edit, she also extended to the rest of the cast, specifically in the form of the portraits that are interspersed throughout each of the episodes. “The portraits convey a certain dignity to these people and their stories, because back in the day, to have your portrait taken or to have your portrait painted was a sign of wealth. By taking the time just showing these people and their world, it lends itself to their humanity,” said McMillon. “Barry talks about how there’s a lot of people who will go through life not really looking a person of color in the eye. But, for this moment, while you’re experiencing this project, you have to look. You can’t look away. That’s one of the things that I appreciate about Barry’s storytelling.”

Shooting a Period Series in the 21st Century

Despite the series being set in the 1800s, there wasn’t much that had to be shot with visual effects. Says Dottie Starling, the show’s VFX supervisor, “I wanted to approach it in a way where it allowed Barry to shoot the way he wanted to tell his story, and I do what I have to do so we do it financially right or we do it technically right. It was a world that had to be so real, but it’s a world that wasn’t real at the same time.”

Sometimes the modern world just couldn’t be shot around and VFX was the only solution. While scouting a small town in Georgia, Starling said, “This was the worst place we could ever shoot. We had big steadicam moves. In that town, next to every building are telephone poles. There are wires. There are transformers - things you cannot touch. There’s a building we couldn’t touch. There are shadows. It was a hot sunny day. And I walked in and I looked at Barry and I said shoot whatever you want. I’ve got to fix it all anyway.”

When the visual effect reveals itself to the viewer, Barry and James feel that’s problematic. Says Jenkins, “We always want the audience to be as grounded as Cora. And Dottie was really great at allowing James and I to do the things that we do to move the camera the way we want to move it to allow the sets and the backgrounds and all these things to be interactive in a way that we’d love for them to be.”

Background Performances

As true with any world-creating story, the extras or background actors were even more important on The Underground Railroad. Each day where there were many extras, Jenkins would open the day with a heartfelt and sincere speech about the importance of their work and the respect he was showing the material. “I was just so moved by how willing and how giving our background extras were so much so that it was a point of distinction and it was very important to me that the first piece of media that anyone saw of this show, there were none of our main actors in the first teaser of this show,” he says. “It’s just 300 or 400 of our background extras and they’re all looking directly at the audience.” “We don’t often talk about background extras giving performances, but I think in this show, the success of it was so crucial to the success of the show.”

Hope and Resilience

On inspiring hope in future Black filmmakers, Jenkins doesn’t think of himself as a symbol or a trailblazer. He says, “I don’t know if that representation matters but the idea of someone like me from the place I’m from, if you’ve seen Moonlight, that’s the world I’m from, that I can step onto a set with trains and visual effects and all these lights and all these things. Of course, I can because I was a kid, I know what it felt like to think that Black people could ride trains or build trains that run underground and all that any of us are doing is just manifesting our dreams and telling these stories. And so, if I can do it - if I can tell a 10-episode however big budget show about Black people in trains underground - then yeah, the next dude from the projects can as well.”

Edgerton adds, “I think this show is really important, because, yes, you’re going through an incredibly painful experience as an audience watching the suffering and the subjugation and the injustice, and yet, on the other side of it, humanity always ekes through. The goodness of people always finds its way to kind of shine a different light.”

Jenkins is hopeful that those who watch the series will continue to talk about the issues. “What I hope is, in telling a story that’s set so far in the past but is still so very relevant to what we’ve just gone through in this year, I hope it will, for the audience, remind them that these conversations need to continue to happen. And I really do hope that. Because, I think, this show is ultimately joyous and hopeful in the end. And I hope it provides an image of what could be.”

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad chronicles Cora Randall’s (newcomer Thuso Mbedu) desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping a Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Over the course of her journey, Cora is pursued by Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton), a bounty hunter fixated on bringing her back to the plantation she escaped; especially since her mother Mabel is the only runaway he has never caught.

As Cora travels from state to state, she contends with the legacy of the mother that left her behind and her own struggles to realize a life she never thought was possible. The change in setting that comes with almost every episode serves as a window into Cora’s state of mind. Rather than the traditional serialized structure that returns to the same world and characters with each episode, we see Cora and her landscape evolve over the course of the series.

The Underground Railroad was filmed in numerous locations and cities across the state of Georgia, including Savannah and Atlanta, over 116 days.

The series stars Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon and Joel Edgerton. Aaron Pierre, William Jackson Harper, Sheila Atim, Amber Gray, Peter De Jersey, Chukwudi Iwuji, Damon Herriman, Lily Rabe, Irone Singleton, Mychal-Bella Bowman, Marcus "MJ" Gladney, Jr., Will Poulter and Peter Mullan round out the cast.

Barry Jenkins serves as showrunner and directs all ten episodes of the limited series for Amazon Studios. Jenkins, Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak executive produce under their PASTEL banner alongside Plan B’s Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt, and executive producers, Richard Heus, Jacqueline Hoyt and Colson Whitehead. The production team includes director of photography James Laxton (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), production designer Mark Friedberg (Joker, If Beale Street Could Talk, Selma), costume designer Caroline Eselin (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), hair designer Lawrence Davis (Watchmen, Just Mercy, True Detective), makeup designer Doniella Davy (Moonlight, Euphoria, Ford v Ferrari), composer Nicholas Britell (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, Succession and editors Joi McMillon (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, Zola) and Alex O’Flinn (The Rider, The OA).

Jenkins adapted the series alongside veteran writers Jacqueline Hoyt (The Leftovers, The Good Wife), Nathan C. Parker (Moon, Equals) and the trio of newcomers Allison Davis, Adrienne Rush and Jihan Crowther.

All ten episodes of the limited series will premiere on May 14 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

Chapter 1: Georgia When Caesar convinces Cora to escape from the Randall plantation in Georgia, their lives are irrevocably changed. Together they discover the impossible in an underground railroad which takes them on an unexpected journey that reveals the true face of America.

Chapter 2: South Carolina Griffin, South Carolina – a seeming paradise of progress and racial harmony that hides dark secrets, especially the secrets of “Bessie" and "Christian." Meanwhile, bounty hunter Arnold Ridgeway begins his pursuit of Cora.

Chapter 3: North Carolina Cora reaches a dangerous town in North Carolina where she must secret away in an abolitionist’s attic. Here, the exclusionary laws banning the very existence of Black people, free or otherwise, puts everyone’s lives in danger.

Chapter 4: The Great Spirit A young Arnold Ridgeway comes of age while testing his belief in “The Great Spirit.”

Chapter 5: Tennessee Exodus Captured by Ridgeway, Cora is forced to travel across the barren inferno of Tennessee. She shares the perilous journey with Jasper, a noble runaway filled with inner strength.

Chapter 6: Tennessee Proverbs For Arnold Ridgeway, a journey home reveals that "the past is not past." And a chance encounter with a freedman named Royal and his band of freedom fighters gives Cora new hope.

Chapter 7: Fanny Briggs Let the fire burn.

Chapter 8: Indiana Autumn Royal brings Cora to Valentine Farm, a thriving Black community 7on the bountiful Indiana frontier. Carrying the scars of her journey, Cora struggles to both find and accept peace.

Chapter 9: Indiana Winter Cora’s presence as a fugitive ignites tensions amongst the Valentine community. Just as she was beginning to accept the serenity she deserves, chaos reigns.

Chapter 10: Mabel In this tale of motherhood, the beginning is the end is the beginning... for both mother and daughter. BIOS

Barry Jenkins - Showrunner, Executive Producer, Writer, Director

Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins’ feature film debut, Medicine for Melancholy, was hailed as one of the best films of 2009 by The New York Times and received several Independent Spirit and Gotham Award nominations. In 2017, along with playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jenkins received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his second feature the Academy Award and Golden Globe winning Best Picture Moonlight. As well as earning eight Academy Award nominations, ten Broadcast Critics Choice Awards nominations, six Golden Globe nominations and four BAFTA nominations, Moonlight won Best Picture and Director at the Gotham Awards and Best International Film by the British Independent Film Awards. In addition to NYFCC and NBR awarding Jenkins Best Director and LAFCA naming him Best Director and the film Best Picture, Jenkins received a DGA Best Director nomination and won the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay. His third feature, the adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk went on to receive three Academy Award nominations and won Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards. Jenkins also received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Director. Jenkins’ next feature film projects include a follow up to The Lion King for Walt Disney Studios as well as a biopic of famed choreographer, Alvin Ailey, for Searchlight Pictures.

For television, Jenkins directed an episode in the first season of the Netflix Original Series Dear White People. His next project for television is an adaptation of National Book Award winner Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad for Amazon. Jenkins has directed all episodes and written a number of the screenplays. Other upcoming work includes a script based on the life of the first American Female Olympic boxing champ Clarissa “T-Rex” Shields as well as an adaptation of Netflix’s original documentary, Virunga, about the battle to save the Congo’s mountain gorilla population.

Thuso Mbedu - “Cora Randall”

This spring, rising star actress Thuso Mbedu will star as the lead role of “Cora” in Barry Jenkins' The Underground Railroad, making her the first South African leading woman of a US television series. The limited series is based on Colson Whitehead’s bestselling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which the Oscar- winner Jenkins adapted and directed. Joel Edgerton and Aaron Pierre are among Mbedu's co-stars in the limited series.

An established actress in South Africa, Mbedu was nominated for her 2nd International Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in 2018 for her breakout performance on the series “Is’Thunzi.” She won a SAFTA (South African Film & TV Awards) for Best Actress – TV Drama, and was nominated for Best Young Actress at the IARA (International Achievement Recognition Awards) for her work on the series. That year, she was also featured on the cover of the Forbes Africa "Under 30" issue highlighting African leaders.

Mbedu currently splits her time between Los Angeles and South Africa.

Joel Edgerton - “Ridgeway”

Joel Edgerton was born in Blacktown, New South Wales. He attended the Nepean Drama School in western Sydney before transitioning into stage and screen roles. Edgerton launched his film career in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, portraying a young “Owen Lars,” stepbrother of “Anakin Skywalker” and uncle to “Luke Skywalker.”

Next, Edgerton can be seen in the Barry Jenkins’ helmed Amazon series The Underground Railroad. He will star as ‘Ridgeway,’ a bounty hunter, and alongside Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, and Aaron Pierre. Later this summer, Edgerton will appear in the medieval fantasy film, The Green Knight opposite Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander. The feature film is directed by David Lowery, and will be released in theaters nationwide on July 30, 2021 by A24.

Currently, Edgerton is in production for Thomas W. Wright’s crime thriller The Unknown, which he also produces alongside co-star Sean Harris. The story involves two strangers who meet and strike up a friendship. But what one does not know is that the other man is a veteran undercover police officer working to secure a conviction for an unsolved murder committed years earlier. He will next begin production for the Sam Esmail-produced TV series Gaslit, a modern take on Watergate that focuses on the untold stories and forgotten characters of the infamous Nixon scandal. Edgerton will executive produce and star in the series alongside Julia Roberts and Sean Penn.

Edgerton last appeared in the Netflix Original film, The King, which he also co-wrote along with director David Michod. The film premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival before streaming on Netflix on November 1, 2019.

In November 2018, Edgerton directed the bibliographical drama, Boy Erased, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018. Edgerton starred alongside Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe.

Earlier in 2018, Edgerton starred in the France Lawrence directed thriller Red Sparrow, alongside Jennifer Lawrence. The film was released by Twentieth Century Fox on March 2, 2018. Edgerton also appeared in Gringo, opposite Charlize Theron and David Oyelowo. The film, directed by his brother Nash Edgerton, follows an American businessman who travels to Mexico and soon crosses the line from citizen to criminal. Gringo was released by Amazon on March 9, 2018.

In 2017, Edgerton starred in Netflix’s action-crime film, Bright, opposite Will Smith. It was released on December 22, 2017 and subsequently renewed for a sequel. Within its first month on Netflix, Bright became one of the streaming service’s most viewed original titles.

In the fall of 2016, Edgerton co-starred in the drama, Loving, directed by Jeff Nichols, alongside Ruth Negga, Michael Shannon, and Nick Kroll. The film tells the true story of an interracial married couple who were sentenced to prison in 1958 Virginia. The film was released by Focus Features on November 4, 2016.For his performance as Richard Loving, Edgerton was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Lead Actor.

In January 2016, Edgerton starred in the Western Jane Got a Gun opposite Natalie Portman. Directed by Gavin O’Connor and released by The Weinstein Company, the film follows a woman who asks her ex-lover to help her save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him. In March 2016, Edgerton also appeared in the Jeff Nichols’ film Midnight Special opposite Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst. A contemporary science fiction chase film, Midnight Special is the latest in a series of A-list filmmakers that Edgerton has worked with. The film was distributed by Warner Brothers and eOne.

In September 2015, Edgerton starred in Scott Cooper’s action crime-drama Black Mass alongside Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dakota Johnson. Based off the 2001 book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, the story unveils the true life events of infamous South Boston criminal Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his territory. Edgerton plays Bulger’s childhood friend and corrupt FBI agent “John Connolly.” The film had its world premiere at the 72ndAnnual Venice Film Festival and was released by Warner Bros. Black Mass was also featured at Telluride Film Festival and the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and earned Edgerton the Santa Barbara International Film Festival “Virtuoso” award, which celebrates breakthrough performances.

August 2015 marked Edgerton’s feature directorial debut with The Gift, starring Jason Bateman. Edgerton co-starred with Rebecca Hall in the story that explores the relationship of Bateman and Hall, a husband and wife seeking to reinvigorate their marriage in a new town, only to have their life disrupted by a “friend” from the past. Edgerton wrote the script and produced the film, and was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for First-Time Feature Film Direction. The Gift was distributed by STX Entertainment.

In December 2014, Edgerton starred in Ridley Scott’s epic retelling of the Biblical story Exodus: Gods and Kings. Edgerton paired with Christian Bale as they played on-screen brothers “Moses” and “Rhamses.” The film was produced by 20th Century Fox. Earlier in 2014, Edgerton appeared in the psychological thriller Felony, which he wrote, produced, and starred in. Edgerton portrays an officer who runs a young cyclist off the road after an evening of celebratory drinking and subsequently lies about the accident to his fellow officers. The Australian film premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2013, Edgerton portrayed the character of “Tom Buchanan” in Baz Luhrmann’s remake of The Great Gatsby, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. Warner Brothers released the film, based on the famous novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, on May 10th. It premiered that same year at the Festival de Cannes.

In December 2012, Edgerton had a pivotal role alongside Jessica Chastain and Chris Pratt in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. The film chronicles the search and ultimate death of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. special troops in Pakistan and was nominated for Best Picture at the 85th Annual Academy Awards. Joel also appeared in The Odd Life of Timothy Green opposite Jennifer Garner, the critically acclaimed, mixed- martial-arts drama Warrior opposite Nick Nolte and Tom Hardy, and the prequel of John Carpenter’s The Thing, opposite Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

In 2010, Edgerton starred in the Australian film Animal Kingdom, a powerful crime drama that explores the intense battle between a criminal family and the police, and the ordinary lives caught in the middle. The film received the World Cinema Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was also awarded the Australian Film Institute/AFI Awards for “AFI Best Film” and “AFI Member’s Choice.” Edgerton was honored with an “AFI Award” for “Best Supporting Actor” on behalf of the film.

In 2008, Edgerton was seen in the film The Square, directed by his brother Nash Edgerton. That same year, Edgerton starred in Acolytes, an Australian film about teenagers who get revenge on a serial killer. In 2007, Edgerton was seen in the film Whisper with Josh Holloway. He also had a significant role in the 2006 American film Smokin’ Aces.

In 2005, Edgerton appeared in the British comedy Kinky Boots, in a lead role alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, as the son of a deceased shoemaker who must find a niche market in the 21st century. That same year, Edgerton lent his voice to the title character of The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, an Academy Award-nominated animated short film.

Off the screen Edgerton starred alongside Cate Blanchett as “Stanley” in the Sydney Theatre Company’s acclaimed 2009 production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Edgerton and Blanchett also performed the play to sold-out audiences at the Kennedy Center in November 2009, followed by a run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2009. He has appeared in multiple stage productions, most notably at The Sydney Theatre Company - Blackrock, Third World Blues and Love for Love - and Bell Shakespeare - Henry IV. On television, Edgerton is known for playing the role of “Will” on the series The Secret Life of Us for which he was nominated for an “AFI Award.”

Edgerton currently splits his time between Australia, New York and Los Angeles.

Chase W. Dillon - “Homer”

Chase Wesley Dillon was born in 2009 in Lafayette, Louisiana. He currently lives in Connecticut with his parents and younger twin brothers Darius and Cyrus. He also has an older brother Thomas and an older sister Lesley.

Dillon recurred as Ollie in BET's and Paramount Pictures’ hit television series, First Wives Club in season one and also played Young Igwe in Universal Television’s Little America. He recently filmed a recurring role on the Untitled Michael Che sketch comedy series for HBO Max. Academy Award winning director Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight,” “If Beale Street Could Talk”) selected Dillon to star as Homer in the limited series adaptation of author Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Dillon also has been cast in the Series Regular role as Hawthorne in the new upcoming animated series “Cedar.”

Multi-talented Dillon enjoys playing piano, singing, dancing and riding dirt-bikes, as well as writing Chinese calligraphy and hieroglyphics. Additionally, he is an active ambassador for the Kingdom International Economic Development Corporation, a non-for-profit organization established to educate women and youth, making available tools and knowledge for self-empowerment and advancement in the business community.

Aaron Pierre - “Caesar”

Aaron Pierre is a graduate of the prestigious LAMDA in London. Pierre stars as Caesar in Barry Jenkins’ highly-anticipated Amazon Prime Video limited series The Underground Railroad. He recently wrapped shooting M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming feature Old for Universal. Pierre was nominated for the 2018 Ian Charleson Award for his professional stage debut this past summer as “Cassio” in “Othello,” opposite Mark Rylance and Andre Holland, at Shakespeare’s Globe. He was last seen in David S. Goyer’s hit SyFy series Krypton, Jez Butterworth's Amazon series Britannia, the ITV miniseries Tennison, a prequel to Prime Suspect, and King Hedley II at Theatre Royal Stratford East.

William Jackson Harper - “Royal”

Emmy nominee William Jackson Harper is most notably known for his portrayal of “Chidi” in NBC’s award- winning comedy series “The Good Place.” For the show’s fourth and final season, Harper earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. For two consecutive years, he received a Critics’ Choice Award nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.’ Harper is currently in pre-production on HBO Max’s “Love Life,” for which he will star in and produce. He will next be seen starring opposite Aya Cash in the indie rom com “We Broke Up,” releasing on VOD on April 23. This May, Harper will star in Barry Jenkins’ Amazon limited series “The Underground Railroad,” portraying the character of Royal, a freeborn Black man who is dedicated to the pursuit of freedom for himself and all Black people.

Earlier this year, Harper narrated the Marvel audiobook series Black Panther: Sins of the King. In 2020, he starred in the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Audible presentation of Animals by Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

In 2019, Harper starred in the Focus Features’ legal drama “Dark Waters,” which centered on the scandal revolving around the DuPont chemical company. Directed by Todd Haynes, Harper starred alongside Mark Ruffalo and Tim Robbins. Harper also starred in A24’s thriller “Midsommar” with Florence Pugh and directed by Ari Aster. His additional feature film credits include “Lost Holiday,” “Paterson,” “True Story,” “All Good Things” and “How to Tell You’re a Douchebag.” On television, Harper co-starred as the character Xander opposite John Krasinski in the second season of Amazon’s “Jack Ryan.” Additionally, he has made guest appearances on numerous acclaimed television series including “30 Rock,” “The Blacklist,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: CI,” Hulu’s “Deadbeat,” “High Maintenance,” “Unforgettable” and the PBS children’s series “The Electric Company.” His credits also include the telefilms “The Breaks” and “The Share.”

Born in Dallas, Harper has an extensive background in theater, co-starring alongside Cristin Milioti in “After The Blast” at Lincoln Center, as well as on Broadway in the Tony Award winning play “All The Way,” with Bryan Cranston. In 2018, Harper made his playwriting debut with the drama “Travisville,” which centers on a Texas church community untouched by the tumult of the civil rights movement. The play opened at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre to critical praise, with The New York Times noting Harper’s “serious writing chops.” Additional stage performances include “A Family for All Occasions” at the Labyrinth, “Modern Terrorism” at Second Stage, “The Total Bent,” “Titus Andronicus” and “Measure for Measure” at the Public, “Placebo” and “A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick” at Playwrights Horizons and “Queens Boulevard” and “Paradise Park” at the Signature. Harper also has numerous regional theater credits, including “Ruined,” “Hamlet,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Romeo and Juliet.”

Harper currently resides in Brooklyn with his dog Chico.

Sheila Atim - “Mabel”

Sheila Atim was named by Variety as one of 10 Brits to Watch for 2020. She stars opposite Halle Berry in Halle’s directorial debut Bruised, which premiered at TIFF 2020 securing Netflix as its home. Atim was awarded the Rising Star award at TIFF for the same performance. She won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical in 2018 for her performance in Girl From The North Country at the Old Vic Theatre and starred alongside Mark Rylance and Andre Holland in Shakespeare’s Othello at The Globe, both in London. She starred in Hulu’s Harlots opposite Samantha Morton and is featured in Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse for Amazon Prime Video.

Atim has performed in award-winning theatre productions in the West End, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Donmar Warehouse, and The Old Vic. She also won the Critics’ Circle Award for most promising newcomer in 2018 and was awarded an MBE by the Queen of England for her contributions to theatre and the arts in 2019.