‘The Underground Railroad’ First Look: Barry Jenkins' First TV Series Is Unveiled
Barry Jenkinsis a busy man. In addition to preparing to take the helm for Disney’sThe Lion Kingfollow-up, the Oscar-winning director ofMoonlightandIf Beale Street Could Talkis making his foray into television. Amazon Studios unveiled the first images from Jenkins' first-ever TV seriesThe Underground Railroad, a drama based on Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name. SeeThe Underground Railroadfirst look images below.
The Underground Railroad First Look
Amazon Studioshas released some first-look photos from Jenkins' limited seriesThe Underground Railroad, which has just wrapped production. Jenkins, who is directing and executive producing the series, announced the news in atweeton Tuesday. Production on the Civil War-era drama was nearly finished, with only three days to go, before the coronavirus forced filming to halt in Georgia. Back in April, Jenkinscalled the productionone of the greatest challenges of his career.
“It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done, not because it was difficult to make physically, but just emotionally,” Jenkins said. “I’ve never cried on set with anything I’ve made. On this one, at least once every two weeks somebody would be like ‘you alright man?’ I would have to walk… off the set for 10 or 15 minutes because I was just distraught. Our guidance counselor pulled me off set one day and would not let me continue to direct.”
Unlike many other series directed by high-profile filmmakers,The Underground Railroadis totally Jenkins' baby, with the filmmaker writing and directing all 11 episodes of the limited series. It will be exciting to see how Jenkins follows up his two knock-out filmsIf Beale Street Could Talkand his Oscar-winning breakoutMoonlightbefore the directorearns that Disney paycheck. But we’ll see plenty more from Jenkins in the near-future: the filmmaker is set to helm an Alvin Ailey biopic, write the upcomingVirungaadaptation, and work on arevival ofThe Knickwith hisMoonlightstar Andre Holland.
The Underground Railroadis based on Whitehead’s bestselling 2016 novel, which imagines the famous Underground Railroad as a literal underground subway system, full of engineers, conductors and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. The novel follows Cora, a fugitive slave who makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South, escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad.
The series starsThuso Mbedu,Chase W. Dillon,Aaron Pierre, andJoel Edgerton. A release date has not been revealed.
