Jason Mitchell On 'TYREL' And Refusing To Conform (Sundance Interview)

It’s freezing in Park City, Utah, but Jason Mitchell is unphased by the brisk windchill and unending slow flurries. The 31-year-old's career is continually rising, and it shows in his upbeat attitude. His performance on the Lena Waithe helmed The Chi is garnering rave reviews, but Mitchell is at Sundance for another project entirely. In TYREL, the New Orleans native stars as Tyler, a young man who takes a trip to upstate New York with one of his friends. He soon finds himself trying to navigate blinding whiteness as the only Black person in the group. When Mitchell read the script which was penned by the film’s director Sebastian Silva, he jumped at the chance to be involved. “It was the most unorthodox thing I think I'd ever seen,” he explained. “(Sebastian) let me know that he wanted me to have the role, but he also wanted me to make sure all the nuances were right because he’s not Black.” As Black folks, we’ve all experienced that sense of unease that comes with being the only Black person in a room. It’s a feeling Jordan Peele captured perfectly in his stellar Oscar-nominated film Get Out. It's a feeling that Mitchell further emphasizes in TYREL — sans the horror elements. “I feel like it's important to let people know how we feel, meaning Black people, especially Black men in this situation,” Mitchell expressed. I think it's important to do that in a non-violent manner. I thought this was the perfect way to show that everyday struggle. A lot of times my characters go to extremes, like Ronsel in Mudbound— he was very extreme.”

From his breakout role in 2015’s Straight Outta Compton as the legendary Easy-E to his more recent roles in The Chi and Amazon’s Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, Tyler is Mitchell's closest role to an every day Black man, and he wanted to be sure that the screenplay reflected as such. "(Sebastian) really wanted to know if you were Black, how would you feel in this situation," he said, "A lot of the ways I moved reflected that. That's what makes TYREL such a beautiful movie. They have things in there that only black people can get.”

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Dee Rees on bringing 'Mudbound' to life & confronting America's gruesome history (EXCLUSIVE)

There are films, and then there are masterpieces. Dee Rees’ Mudbound is a masterpiece. It’s difficult to translate words onto film — giving the characters and storylines vibrancy and richness especially when another person birthed those words. And yet, Rees was able to electrify Hillary Jordan’s debut novel into a sweeping cinematic epic. At a time when the country is suffocating under the vilest remnants of our history, Rees has used film to drag our past into the present — laying it at our feet. Considering her debut indie film Pariah and her stellar HBO biopic Bessie, Rees didn’t expect to take on Mudbound. “It's funny, I wasn't aware of the book," she explained to me as we sat in a hotel suite one fall afternoon overlooking New York City’s Columbus Circle. “I read through the script first and thought okay there's a lot there and that prompted me to go back to the book and see what else I could bring forward. I ended up writing a lot more original material because it needed to be a story of two families — not just the Jackson family in service of the McAllans. I wanted to really contextualize our history, and how it's not this separated thing, it's not this disjointed thing. It's all interwoven. I wanted to try and work on this film on a thematic level and conceptual level. It's not just about racism; it's not just Black and white, it's about who we are as people and the stories we tell about ourselves versus what our story actually is and how those things connect.”

Set in Mississippi during the 1940's Mudbound centers around the McAllans — a white family who buy a farm and the Jacksons—a Black family who have been sharecroppers on the land for generations. For Rees, the beauty of this story was found in witnessing the families bang and clash against one another on this muddy cotton farm in the Jim Crow South. “I wanted to have this dark symbiosis of two families who are kind of tied to each other,” Rees explained. “With the two patriarchs Hap (Rob Morgan) and Henry (Jason Clarke), I'm dealing with this idea of disinheritance. Hap literally has bones in this land. He has blood. He has his ancestors there. But he can't take title to it. Whereas Henry buys into the land, but ironically feels like he's been disinherited. Pappy (Jonathan Banks) sold his land, so he is clinging on to this thing that he feels is rightfully his.”

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Dee Rees' 'Mudbound' is astounding and marvelously crafted (NYFF Review)

I'm always disturbed by people who don’t want to talk about race — as if it’s not ingrained in the fabric of our country. To act as though race is not at the core of who we are as a people — as if race doesn’t stand at the center of how our country operates today, in the 21st century. Dee Rees’ sprawling World War II set epic, Mudbound serves up our history in a spellbinding tale of two families, one Black and one white whose lives crash together on a cotton farm in 1940’s Mississippi. Based on the stunning 2008 debut novel by Hillary Jordan – Mudbound follows the McAllan family, Laura (Carey Mulligan) and her husband Henry (Jason Clarke) who move from Memphis, Tennessee to rural Mississippi. Henry, desperate to put his own stamp on the world buys a cotton farm, uprooting his wife and two daughters. Endlessly grateful that her husband saved her from the fate of being an old maid when he married her at the ripe old age of 31 – Laura goes along with her husband’s plan, leaving behind her city-bred sensibilities and education for the grit, mud, and violence of the Mississippi cotton farm. With the move, she must also learn to deal with the leer of her racist, Klan-praising father-in-law Pappy (Jonathan Banks).

The McAllan’s arrival on the farm directly impacts the Jacksons – a Black family whose have teetered between sharecroppers and tenants (depending on the crop season) and whose ancestors have worked the land for generations. Florence Jackson – played quietly by Mary J. Blige- is a mother of four, healer and equal partner in her marriage to her husband Hap Jackson – a magnificent and commanding Rob Morgan of Netflix’s Marvel series. Hap is a force. He’s aware of the times in which he lives, but he’s not subservient. He’s a religious man, but he is also willing to take his destiny into his own hands.

Though the McAllans and the Jacksons coexist on the farm for a time with minimal runs ins, the end of the war brings forth major changes. The horrors of the Second World War torment Henry's brother – a charismatic and good looking fighter pilot named Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and he brings those nightmares with him to his brother’s farm when he returns home. The Jackson’s eldest son Ronsel (portrayed by a marvelous Jason Mitchell) can’t force himself to conform to the wills of the Jim Crow South after living freely as a sergeant oversees. Still reeling from the war, both men find themselves adrift in their home country and their respective homes.

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