Death-Penalty Roles Inspire Actors to Take Stands for Social Justice, Against Death Penalty

Popular cul­ture has the poten­tial to change social atti­tudes, and actors in two eager­ly antic­i­pat­ed movies focus­ing on the death penal­ty are hop­ing that their films will do just that. In recent inter­views about their roles in the dra­mas Just Mercy and Clemency, actors Jamie Foxx, Alfre Woodard, and Aldis Hodge dis­cuss how those films inspired them to open up about their past and affect­ed their views on capital punishment. 

Just Mercy became high­ly per­son­al for Foxx (pic­tured right, with Just Mercy co-star Michael B. Jordan), whose father was impris­oned for sev­en years for pos­sess­ing $25 worth of an ille­gal sub­stance. The movie — an adap­ta­tion of Bryan Stevenson’s best-sell­ing book of the same name — fol­lows the sto­ry of Stevenson’s against-the-odds efforts to free wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed death-row pris­on­er Walter McMillian, whom Foxx por­trays. McMillian was framed for the 1986 mur­der of an 18-year-old white woman in Monroeville, Alabama in a racial­ly charged inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al. Foxx said he has ​“nev­er been for the death penal­ty” and the film reflects the real­i­ty and his fam­i­ly expe­ri­ence of the legal process as an instru­ment of racial injus­tice. ​“That’s why it’s impor­tant to let peo­ple know,” he said, ​“because what I’m telling you is some­thing that every­body that is African American in this build­ing goes through every sin­gle day and we’ve become used to it.” 

Foxx reflect­ed on why he con­sid­ers the mes­sage of Just Mercy so impor­tant: ​“I’ve always said this about America, our nat­ur­al resource is free­dom. And the great thing about America is the evo­lu­tion of it. We got this wrong at one point in American his­to­ry, we’re right­ing those things, and we con­tin­ue to do it. Hopefully we under­stand that this is an ongo­ing thing and accept that this is a prob­lem and then try to fix it because like Bryan Stevenson would say, ​‘If we don’t acknowl­edge that these things are hap­pen­ing, then we can’t take steps in try­ing to correct it.’” 

Woodard says her social activism attract­ed her to Clemency, writer-direc­tor Chinonye Chukwu​’s acclaimed dra­ma about the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal down-spi­ral of prison war­den Bernadine Williams, as she pre­pares to over­see the exe­cu­tion of death-row pris­on­er Anthony Woods. ​“I have been a social activist since I was 14,” she said in a con­ver­sa­tion host­ed by Variety. ​“My sense of being an artist is com­plete­ly root­ed in my activism and my spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. The death penal­ty, state-spon­sored exe­cu­tions, every time they hap­pen, it takes some­thing out of me per­son­al­ly. And I weep.” 

Woodard was intrigued by Chukwu’s deci­sion to focus on the death penal­ty from the per­spec­tive of a prison war­den. ​“We haven’t … talked out loud about the fact that the peo­ple that we charge to car­ry out these exe­cu­tions have a high­er PTSD rate — or as high a rate — as peo­ple with mul­ti­ple deploy­ments on bat­tle­fields.” In an inter­view with Gold Derby she said her dream is that the film will help ​“to have this be part of main­stream con­ver­sa­tion. We’ve nev­er looked at the lives of peo­ple that we charge to car­ry out our wish­es of hav­ing exe­cu­tions. I want this to go to the malls. I don’t just want it in the art houses.” 

Hodge, who plays death-row pris­on­er Woods, told Gold Derby that he is com­mit­ted to be ​“a part of art that has the poten­tial to move the nee­dle, to push the con­ver­sa­tion for a pro­gres­sive rea­son.” As a result, he choos­es projects ​“that can hope­ful­ly do more good out there in the world.” Clemency, he says, crys­tal­ized his views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Hodge said that before he made the film, he didn’t know how he would react “[i]f some­body that I loved was tak­en from me, and the death penal­ty was laid at my feet as an option.” Now, under­stand­ing how the death penal­ty ​“affects every­body” involved, he says ​“this film has def­i­nite­ly shaped my per­spec­tive to say absolute­ly no, I would always vote against capital punishment.” 

Clemency and Just Mercy are both set for the­ater releas­es in December 2019. Clemency won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Drama at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2019, the first time the award has been giv­en to a movie direct­ed by an African-American woman.