FILM AWARDS SEASON KICKOFF OCT Nº4 JUSTICE LEAGUE MICHAEL B. JORDAN, JAMIE FOXX DRAMATIZE ACTIVIST AND ATTORNEY BRYAN STEVENSON’S FIGHT FOR THE WRONGLY ACCUSED IN ‘JUST MERCY’ By Brent Lang P.38 FILM AWARDS SEASON KICKOFF IN ‘JUST MERCY,’ MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND JAMIE FOXX LEAD A DIVERSE TEAM TO TELL THE STORY OF ATTORNEY BRYAN STEVENSON’S FIGHT TO FREE AN INNOCENT MAN FROM DEATH ROW By Brent Lang Photographs by Caitlin Cronenberg FREEDOM RIDERS FILM AWARDS SEASON KICKOFF I hope together we can actually create a more just world.” SOCIAL JUSTICE It was a rousing, goose-bump-inducing call to arms, one fueled by a galvanizing belief in the capacity of individuals to effect change, but also the kind of speech that few orators could pull off without seem- ACTIVIST AND ing hectoring or maudlin. “Everybody should know him,” says Foxx. “It reminds me of when Barack Obama came along. You went, ‘Everybody should know him.’” It demonstrates that Stevenson is the best ambassador for a movie ATTORNEY BRYAN about a difficult subject — a film that faces challenging commercial headwinds when it opens it opens in limited release on Dec. 25. before expanding in January. In an age of high-flying superhero adventures, STEVENSON HAS “Just Mercy” is an earthbound story about real people trying to do right. In short, it’s the kind of movie they just don’t make much these days. “This was an important story, a moving story and one that we felt could draw a mainstream audience,” says Toby Emmerich, chairman DONE A LOT IN of Warner Bros. Picture Group, the studio behind the roughly $25 mil- lion production. “The filmmakers had a plan to make it at a responsi- ble price, so there was managed risk, and you know sometimes you’ve HIS 59 YEARS just got to take a shot on something you believe in.” Warner Bros. is betting that “Just Mercy” will become a major awards season player, with Jordan and Foxx vying in the lead and supporting actor categories and the film duking it out with front-run- ON THIS EARTH. ners like “Marriage Story” and “The Irishman” in the best picture battle. Even if it falls short of those ambitions and becomes an Oscars also- He’s argued and won cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He created ran, “Just Mercy” will have made history. It’s the first major studio film a museum on the history of lynching, slavery and racial discrimina- to adopt the idea of an inclusion rider, a contractual provision that tion and a memorial to peace and justice. He’s authored a best-selling mandates women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community memoir and been featured in a TED Talk on mass incarceration that and other underrepresented groups be considered for key on-screen went viral. He’s received a MacArthur “genius” grant. But until last Sep- and behind-the-scenes jobs. Jordan got the idea to include the man- tember, on a rain-streaked afternoon at the Toronto Intl. Film Festi- date in his contracts after watching Frances McDormand name-check val, Stevenson had never walked the red carpet at a movie premiere. the initiative while accepting her Oscar in 2018 for “Three Billboards It was, Stevenson admits, a “surreal experience,” one made even Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” more unusual because the film in question, “Just Mercy,” recounts his “We’re always coming from a place of not having power,” says Jor- fight to free Walter McMillian, a wrongfully convicted man whose story dan. “I was like, man, I want my environment to be a reflection of the serves as a fiercely urgent reminder of the inequities in our criminal world I’m living in. We started figuring out a way to do this, so now if justice system. McMillian is portrayed by Jamie Foxx and Stevenson is you want to do this project with me, you’ve got to accept these terms.” played by Michael B. Jordan, the “Black Panther” star who has used his True to form, the overarching production diversity policy didn’t considerable leverage to bring the story to the screen. just stop with the production of “Just Mercy.” Jordan, whose production “Michael has been a great conversation partner throughout this shingle Outlier Society has a first-look deal with Warner Bros., helped whole experience,” says Stevenson. “I can talk to him a little bit about convince the studio’s parent company, WarnerMedia, to embrace the how to move through a courtroom, and he can definitely show me how rider across all of its divisions. In the case of “Just Mercy,” the produc- to move on a red carpet.” Jordan isn’t having it. “Sometimes I think, tion team was able to hire women or people of color to head such ‘What can I tell this guy?’” he says. “Because I look up to him.” major departments as casting, costume design, production design, hair, Despite being new to the world of moviemaking, Stevenson argu- makeup and stunts. It also empowered the various department chiefs ably outshone the A-list stars in attendance at last month’s gala screen- to find people from underrepresented groups to staff other pivotal ing. Premieres tend to be celebratory affairs, filled with shout-outs to roles. Destin Daniel Cretton, the film’s director, says that many of the production teams and studios executives. Yet it was Stevenson who people who got to oversee departments had worked in the business for spoke to the seriousness of what was about to unspool on screen, decades but had never been given a chance to run their own shop. By a searing look at the lives of dispossessed individuals whose reality embracing the inclusion rider, Cretton argues, the production forced could not be further removed from that of the well-heeled festival- staffers to broaden job searches beyond networks of people they’d goers. But it was a world that Stevenson knew intimately, having spent worked with in the past. 35 years with people on death row — people who, he noted have often “They did a kickass job,” says Cretton. “That’s the thing. These aren’t been told their lives have no value and who are ignored or shunted favors that we’re giving out. This is us getting to a point where we’re aside by society. finally giving people what they deserve.” Despite the darkness of the subject matter, Stevenson sounded a Those who worked on “Just Mercy” maintain that having a more hopeful note. “We can change things,” he said as the packed audito- diverse cast and crew fostered an important creative environment, one rium erupted in applause. “We can expect more. We can do more. ... that was crucial to maintain as they told a story about racial injustice. “HAVE WE CREATED A SYSTEM WITH THE KIND OF FAIRNESS AND RELIABILITY AND JUSTICE THAT WE CAN ENGAGE IN A PUNISHMENT THAT HAS TO BE PERFECT? BECAUSE IF WE KILL SOMEONE WHO DIDN’T DO SOMETHING, WE DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO FIX THAT.” — Bryan Stevenson 40 VARIETY GUTTER CREDIT VARIETY 41 FILM AWARDS SEASON KICKOFF “What I remember most is sitting as a group — cast, filmmakers, thought it had big-screen potential. crew — and having these incredibly open, vulnerable conversations “I only make movies that put good in the world,” says Netter. “I always when the cameras weren’t rolling,” says Oscar-winning actress Brie Lar- feel that if a story moves me, hopefully it will move everybody else.” son, who plays one of Stevenson’s colleagues, Eva Ansley. “Conversations Netter enlisted Cretton, a director best known for making “Short that ultimately shaped the course of the filmmaking process in a power- Term 12,” a drama about a group home for troubled teens. In turn, ful way. It wouldn’t have been possible in a less inclusive environment.” Cretton reached out to Jordan through Ryan Coogler, the “Black Pan- “Just Mercy” doesn’t just grapple with knotty moral and legal issues. ther” and “Fruitvale Station” filmmaker who was a friend from their It holds an important place in an ongoing fight to make the enter- days working the indie festival circuit. tainment industry a more open and diverse business. It’s a movie “I called Ryan and said I thought this project would be perfect for that gives two leading black actors roles that are equal to their for- Michael B., and 30 seconds later he’s patched him in and we’re on a midable talent, a production directed by a person of color and a film three-way call,” recalls Cretton. “I believe Michael B. was in Vegas at the that deals frankly with issues of racial injustice. It is, in short, a sign time because there was a lot of thumping music in the background.” of the new direction being charted in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite Jordan’s commitment helped the film secure backing, but the show- and the social activism that sprang up with a rising awareness that case role belongs to Foxx, who digs deep as McMillian, a man who underrepresented groups were being left out of the frame. In 2018, a knows all too well that in Alabama, justice is anything but color blind. record number of movies featured women or people of color as leads With a bushy mustache in initial scenes and a thick Southern accent, or co-leads. Of course, the overwhelming majority of films are still Foxx so transforms himself that Stevenson says he almost felt as if centered on stories of white men, but Jordan and Foxx believe that McMillian, who died in 2013, was reenacting his life on screen.