In 2022, the United States definitely likes to come back to their most edifying news stories.
After
The Girl From Plainville
or
Dr Death
on Starzplay, it's Apple TV+ that refreshes viewers' memories with
Black Bird.
Mystic River
screenwriter
Dennis Lehane tells the true story of an inmate, tasked by the FBI with gaining the trust of a prisoner suspected of being involved in the disappearance in the Midwestern states of about 40 women during the 80s and 90s. To regain his freedom, Jimmy will have to extract a confession from him.
A dangerous friendship and a Socratic dialogue develop between the two men in captivity.
Launched in July on the platform, the six-episode miniseries, which ends this Friday, is based on the autobiographical story of Jimmy Keen.
Taron Egerton lends his features to this son of a police officer fallen into drug trafficking and to whom a risky redemption is offered.
The Rocketman
and
Kingsman
star
has a hard time breaking through the walls of his adversary, a fan of Civil War and Revolutionary War re-enactments portrayed with deceptively sweet Paul Walter Hauser.
For
Le Figaro
, Taron Egerton recounts this fascinating face-to-face which inspired him with reminiscences of the HBO series
The Night Of
and the film
The Silence of the Lambs
with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins
LE FIGARO. - What seduced you in this intense face-to-face?
Taron EGERTON.
-
The story of Jimmy Keene is so extraordinary that it was developed into a film.
The project was known to everyone, including me when I was just starting out.
What was my surprise at the end of the pandemic to receive the scenario of this project which had become a miniseries!
It was the first script that had my heart pounding since the lockdown and I was let be one of the producers.
There was the challenge of giving flesh to a being so many unsaid.
Black Bird
's Jimmy Keen
hides his thoughts, his hopes, his mission.
He must do so in the dangerous environment of a high security prison.
A place populated by unstable fellow prisoners.
However, you have to be sufficiently transparent for the viewer to capture this inner war.
The other challenge was to get back into decent physical shape after two years of confinement and coronavirus (laughs).
Jimmy had the build of an athlete… I looked like a sack of potatoes!
How would you qualify the complicity between Jimmy and Larry?
I had never played a character like Jimmy brimming with such dark energy and masculinity.
The start of the series makes no secret of the flaws and unremarkable aspects of his personality.
I found it difficult at the beginning of my preparation work to feel compassion.
It is by colliding with an individual even more in the heart of darkness that he will react and want to question himself.
Getting inside Larry's mind means becoming as rough and flirtatious as he is.
And also to reveal to him his cracks, in particular those of an unhappy childhood.
Jimmy recognizes elements of his own nature in Larry that he dreads.
Their bond is ambivalent.
Jimmy must make him believe that he subscribes to his ideology.
At the same time, they have to face together the
hostile environment of the penitential center and this creates an emotional bond and an equally dangerous dependency.
It was a very heavy atmosphere.
I am grateful to Paul Walter Hauser for blowing a wind of lightness off camera.
He's a very funny person and it was fascinating to watch him go completely against his nature on screen.
Black Bird
offers Ray Liotta,
who died in May
, his last role in front of the camera.
He plays Jimmy's sick father.
For this tension, this closed confessional to work, it was necessary to understand where Jimmy came from, who this brilliant and respected policeman father was.
It was necessary to feel the external stakes.
Working with him was a remarkable experience.
He had his feet on the ground.
It exuded a mind-blowing raw realism.
As soon as the camera was on him, he dictated the atmosphere.
I was very lucky that he offered me his time, advice, experience and friendship.