As Jimmy Keene, Oscar-nominee Taron Egerton goes from regular prison inmate to maximum security lockup in a bid to extract a murder confession from another inmate in “Black Bird.”
The drama, inspired by real events, tells a compelling tale about a star high school athlete-turned-minor-drug-kingpin, who is sent to prison after accepting a plea deal he’s assured by his retired police officer father (Ray Liotta) will only keep him inside for two years (the judge gives him 10, with no possibility of parole).
But, when Jimmy learns his dad has had a stroke over his fall from grace, and continues to face serious medical issues, Egerton’s character strikes a bargain with detectives and the DA’s office to be transferred to the worst prison in the state on assignment. At the supermax, known for housing the criminally insane, and the most violent, Jimmy’s role is to befriend and coax a confession from suspected serial killer Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) before the man is released on a technicality.
Spanning just six-episodes, “Black Bird” is a fast-paced thriller, keeping viewers on the edge of their seats as Jimmy puts himself in hell to try and get out sooner to see his dad.
“Right off the bat, I saw the story in very mythological terms,” executive producer and showrunner Dennis Lehane told TheWrap. “I was just like, ‘This is the story we’ve been telling – humans have been telling – since the dawn of time, which is like the callow young man who leaves the village to fight the ogre, goes into a cave and comes back out a changed man. That’s really the story.”
Partnering with Lehane both onscreen and off was Egerton, who not only stars in the series, but is an executive producer. And the actor was very involved in the process of getting the right team together.
“He and I had a really firm aesthetic about where this material was going. … So one of them was, you know, I wanted the show to be very Greek, ancient Greek in the sense that most of the violence happens off screen except for the prison stuff. And simultaneously, I wanted it to be extremely disturbing. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. Nothing graphic, you know, but I wanted it to be creepy as all hell. And so we had a vision for that,” Lehane said. “And we picked personnel based on that.”
In fact, Egerton and executive producer Bradley Thomas were championing Hauser for the role of the meek-yet-chilling suspected serial killer Larry.
“And then I asked Paul to read. I can’t say enough about his lack of ego that he would do that after having starred in a film. And he read, and I gave him the most difficult Larry scene to do and he blew us [away],” Lehane said. “I was only worried that Paul wouldn’t scare the sh– out me. And then he did. And I was like, ‘Hired.’”
“So Taron was in every step. I’ve got to say, he set the tone on the thespian side of things. He was professional; he was completely committed; and he had no vanity. And I just thought, I mean, if you just spent six months turning your body into that, I guess, what could you be insecure about?” Lehane added, referring to Egerton’s muscular physique for the show. “But he was right there. We’re all in editing. We’re just like, watching him in editing, and you’re like, ‘Man, we gotta go to the gym.’”
For his part, Hauser dug deep, too, even finding audio recordings of the real life person his character is inspired by.
“He heard a recording of Larry Hall and he said, ‘His voice is super high.’ And so I listened to his first impression of that voice. And I was like, ‘That’s too high. We’re dialing that down at least six notches,’” Lehane said. “So then we came up with the idea that Larry’s voice would get thinner and higher the less confident he felt. So we [built that] in. When we first meet him, his voice is in a lower register, and after the middle of the fourth episode, when he starts to build confidence, we started to bring his voice down.”
The first two episodes of “Black Bird” are available to stream now on Apple TV+. New episodes drop on Fridays.