Harriet
The true account of Harriet Tubman is finally brought to the screen in the new film , Harriet . Cynthia Erivo star as the runaway slave whose courage in the boldness of systemic terror and subjugation continues to urge believers inracial equation and polite rightsto this day . It ’s a torturing and inspirational film about slaveholding in America and how it took aviolent and fucking polite Warto end the pattern of homo owning other humans like property .
Leslie Odom Jr ( Hamilton , Murder on the Orient Express ) plays a key supporting role inHarriet , as William Still , the actual - life diachronic figurewho is often called " The Father of the Underground Railroad . " Still document the stories of many escaped slaves who passed through Philadelphia . These stories would be collected in a leger , calledThe Underground Railroad , which remains one of the most important historical school text from the epoch .
Related : Kasi Lemmons and Cynthia Erivo Interview : Harriet
At a New York City press sidereal day forHarriet , Screen Rant sit down with Odom to discuss his work in the cinema , and the real life exploits of William Still , a man who was contain with a strong moral range and the simple – yet still controversial – belief that every human being should befree from chain of bondage .
Harrietis out now in theaters across the country .
There ’s something really interesting about … There ’s so much really interesting about this movie , but one thing is that there are n’t so many depictions of black multitude in the North during antebellum thralldom .
Yeah .
Was there anything you take playing that role , of a fibre who was not a slave in that era ? I ’m thinking of base , which is determine all in the South , and this is not . Could you talk about those two man of America at that fourth dimension , and even now ?
I conceive that all of those mass , all those black people living in the North in antebellum slavery would have still had their root down south . They would have still had major connections . To talk about a person like William , he was raised by two escaped slaves . His female parent made endeavour at flight twice before she was successful , with her four youngster ; two missy , two son . On the third dodging attempt , she had to make the unsufferable decision to leave her two boy behind . And so William was born in her Modern liveliness , in the North . But guess what that would have been like , for William to have been raised by a charwoman who was potentially grieving for the rest of her life , how could she not ? These are the decision that thrall made pitch-dark people make . To leave their wife behind , to leave their husband behind , to exit their nipper behind . So yes , there is a cleanness that I think he has , there is a gloss that he has , that Harriet just did n’t have any pauperization for , or connection to . They ’re joined in their life ’s oeuvre , their life ’s passion . But I thought there might be some potentiality for clowning and burning , you know , in how unlike they were . Those two different portraits of black liveliness , experience at the same time , in America .
I imagine you touched on it a picayune bit , but why do you think he was so possessed … Obsessed might be a warm word , but with documenting every escaped striver who die through Philly ?
Sure . bully question . I think that his instinct … There ’s a lot in this movie about inherent aptitude . Harriet is guided by the vox of God , by her visions . That ’s her hunch . That ’s her instinct . That ’s the hairs on the back of her neck standing up , ( telling her to ) " Go leftover . " You know … There ’s something in William that realized , " I need to compose this down . " He put on the line … All this hooey had to be done under thick covering fire . He risked the movement , he risked the personal identity of people in the campaign , he put on the line his life and everybody involve , because he knew , " I ’ve got ta write this down for my kids , for my grandkids . They need to hear this story . " Thank God for his instinct .
Last motion , did you have any entree to any of those records , those written document , did you learn anything that surprised you ?
Oh yes . It ’s called The Underground Railroad . The original printing was 800 - 900 pages , but there ’s an abridged rendering that is the good of it . It ’s about 150 - 200 pages of the narration that William compiled . They are fascinating and heartbreaking and mind - blowing . What people had do to … It was n’t easy . It was never ever dewy-eyed . So reading these stories of ingeniousness and brilliance , of how hoi polloi outsmarted slave catchers and outsmarted their owners to make it to freedom is engrossing . They are motion-picture show . You pick up the hard worker narratives , The Underground Railroad , and it ’s like , they jump off the varlet . The stories leap off the page .
More : Screen Rant ’s Harriet Review
