Andre Braugher says Brooklyn Nine Nine must address police brutality
Inside Variety's #Emmys preview cover: Andre Braugher reexamines his cop roles and urges #BrooklynNineNine to rise to the moment https://t.co/QMEA0j6WnC pic.twitter.com/2UXucoo5vt
- Variety (@Variety) September 16, 2020
- He was freaked out and insecure the first season of B99 - He told variety "Everything’s new. I’d never done it before. Am I any good?” Braugher recalls asking himself. “I remember turning to my wife and asking her, ‘Is this funny?’ And she said, ‘Yes, of course, you’re not being deceived.’ But I kept looking at it, saying to myself, is this good? I couldn’t really judge.”
- He liked that Holt is gay, but isn't a defining characteristic. He says "“Holt is a really, really wonderful character, but I think in anybody else’s hands, it might have been something foolish, something silly".
- He says this comedic role has breathe a new life into his career.
- Andre is best know for playing two police officers six-season turn as Det. Frank Pembleton on NBC’s “Homicide: Life on the Street.” and now Brooklyn 99. Reflecting on these iconic roles, he says “I look up after all these decades of playing these characters, and I say to myself, it’s been so pervasive that I’ve been inside this storytelling, and I, too, have fallen prey to the mythology that’s been built up,” he says. “It’s almost like the air you breathe or the water that you swim in. It’s hard to see. But because there are so many cop shows on television, that’s where the public gets its information about the state of policing. Cops breaking the law to quote, ‘defend the law,’ is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it and excused it. That’s something that we’re going to have to collectively address - all cop shows.”
- He believes TV shows need to address police misconduct and the lack civilian control over police departments and "the myth that the outcomes of the criminal justice system are not dependent upon your race has to be confronted.”
- He says programmes that rely on the hero worship of cops will find it difficult to address these things.
- The Police and their interaction with black people will be a‘B-story’ in Episode 16.”
- Dan Goor also confirms there will be a storyline about police brutality in the next season.
- Andre believes that "Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ has to commit itself, as a comedy, to telling the story of how these things happen, and what’s possible to deal with them. I don’t have any easy answers, nor do I have a window into the mind bank of this writing staff,” he says. “Can you tell the same story? Can anyone in America maintain any kind of innocence about what police departments are capable of?”
- He doesn't know where his character would land on the issues - he is very pragmatic.
- This season could be very groundbreaking or could fall flat.
- He was about to make his broadway debut in a play with Debra Messing when Corona struck.
- He runs his career decisions by his wife. He sauid "We’re like-minded; we grew up in similar neighborhoods; we share the same values, She knows me like the back of her hand, and I’m grateful for that.”
- He has 3 sons - who also want to become actors. Even though B99 films in LA he flies home every weekend to see his family. They live in New Jersey! “I made a choice along the way that Ami and those boys were too important to not spend quantity time with, both the health crisis and the democracy crisis that we’re going through demonstrate to me that there’s no substance in the bling. The focus on celebrity-ness - it’s not real. So I just chose, in my own way, to sort of drop out.”
- He knows his choice to spend time with his family hindered his career, but he doesn't regret it.
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Honestly, the summary could go on and on - read the rest of the article. Funny they chose Andre to do this and not Terry Crews.