The Big Picture

Welcome to a new episode of Collider Forces with Genius: MLK/X stars, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre. The duo revisit their journeys in Hollywood thus far, including their experience making films like Waves, Brother, Luce, and more. They also teases their highly anticipated The Lion King prequel, Mufasa: The Lion King, due in theaters in December.

One of the greatest joys at a film festival is meeting an artist for the first time and knowing with certainty that, from that point on, you’ll always prioritize their work. I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of those encounters over the years, but two especially memorable ones are Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre. I first met Harrison Jr. at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival for Luce, and for Pierre it was at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival for Brother, both breathtaking performances in exceptional films. In addition to the fact that both are bursting at the seams with talent, Harrison Jr. and Pierre are also artists who clearly ooze with deep passion and respect for the craft of acting. They’re consistently true treats to chat with, so when the opportunity to host the very first 2-on-1 version of Collider Forces with the pair popped up, it was a must.

While in Park City for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Harrison Jr. and Pierre kicked off their promotional tour for Nat Geo’s Genius: MLK/X. Season 4 of the award-winning anthology series stars Harrison Jr. as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Pierre as Malcolm X, delving into “their complex lives as husbands, fathers, brothers and sons.” By focusing on the moments between game-changing historical events, Genius: MLK/X offers an intimate look at how the icons questioned their resolve and decisions.

During their Collider Forces chat at the Collider interview studio at Sundance brought to you by Film.io, Harrison Jr. and Pierre revisited pivotal moments from their journeys in Hollywood thus far, highlighting some key crossover and shared experiences, but also emphasizing that every path in the industry is different.

Genius: MLK/X “Genius: MLK/X” follows both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Malcolm X (Aaron Pierre) from their formative years, where they were molded by strong fathers and traumatic injustices, to their rich, parallel stories as they shaped their identities and became the change they wished to see in the world. Release Date February 1, 2024 Distributor National Geographic

While revisiting early titles that made a big impression, especially ones that put into focus what he valued in the stories he tells most, Harrison Jr. was quick to shout-out Luce, a movie he headlined with an ensemble that included industry heavyweights Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Octavia Spencer and Marsha Stephanie Blake. It’s a psychological thriller about a young man who was adopted from a war-torn country a decade ago, and since, has become an all-star high school athlete and the poster boy for the new American Dream. A shocking discovery in his locker sparks doubt in his reputation, but the primary question becomes, is he truly at fault or is the teacher who checked his locker preying on dangerous stereotypes?

“I think Luce was a big one for me. I just really loved working with Julius [Onah], and I just loved this expansive narrative of what it meant to be a young African American kid or a Black person or person of color in the US, and what that meant. I’m always trying to pick roles that kind of make me understand me better and how I operate in the world, and also, I think, helps people understand me and what their relationship to a storyteller of my background is like.”

Harrison Jr. went on to highlight another gem on his filmography next, Trey Edward Shults’ Waves. His character, Tyler, is a high school student who appears to have it all, but when the pressure to achieve greatness becomes too much, unexpected drama threatens Tyler’s bright future. One thing Harrison Jr. really appreciated about his experience on the Waves set? Shults’ willingness to put the creative control in his hands. He explained:

“Trey loves to say ‘follow your heart,’ and so I was like, ‘Follow my heart, but under what parameters? How far can I follow my heart? It’s a big heart.’ [Laughs] It’s such a rewarding thing because I think it’s such an important part of the process for an artist, is to get to a place where we feel uninhibited. You know what I mean? And that’s where the real truth and the real creativity kind of flows through. But you just step up and you kind of go, ‘This is where my instincts are leading me. This is what I feel is my truth or the character’s truth in this moment, and if you want to support me and set up the camera around it, then we’ll go for it,’ and he always did that, and I think that’s where some of the best magic happened.”

Aaron Pierre Stars in the Best Movie You Missed in 2023

Pierre enjoyed a similar experience on the set of Clement Virgo’s Brother, a major standout at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival that deserved a far wider audience than it got. It’s an adaptation of the David Chariandy novel of the same name about two brothers coming of age in the 90s as their greatest hopes and dreams are heavily impacted by the violence around them. At the moment, the movie is available to stream on Netflix and I can’t recommend it enough.

While revisiting the title, Pierre recalled his appreciation for how Virgo approaches directing his actors:

“Clement, I don’t know how he does it, I don’t know where he learned it or if he was just born with that communication capacity and skill, but he allows the people he’s working with to have a feeling of liberation and freedom. He’ll come up to you before a take, and you know Clement, he speaks very sort of measured, he’ll come up to you and he’ll just say, ‘We’re ready when you are.’ And then he’ll go, and he won’t even say action. When you start moving, the cameras start moving, and it’s magical and it’s such a gift to have a filmmaker trust you like that.”

When the conversation turned to Genius: MLK/X, Pierre and Harrison Jr. both offered up a behind-the-scenes look at how they figured out how to bring Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. to screen. Pierre began:

“I think the first place I began, or where I personally began was, I was seeking out sources of information which I subjectively felt were closest to being from him himself, or those that were closest to him. So the first place I went was his autobiography, which was, I think, written by Alex Haley, because that was Malcolm himself. And I think the second place I went to after that point was the documentary about Malcolm X, which was guided by Dr. Betty Shabazz. So that’s just an example of how my approach was into beginning to get insight into this tremendous, great man. And then, from there, many sort of live videos and footage guided me also.”

Kelvin Harrison Jr. Doubled Down on This Hugely Charming Quality While Playing Martin Luther King Jr.
Image via National Geographic

Harrison Jr. went about it in a slightly different way. He began by looking for moments many might miss, moments from interviews that often exude truth. He explained:

“Strangely enough, I started with watching interviews because I just wanted to see — I was trying to look up, was he ever on talk shows? People are really funny on talk shows because they start to put on the persona that they want to come across, and then there’s always that awkward moment of when you have to reflect on an answer you gave, and then you kind of get these little glimpses of their actual selves, and their insecurities and the wheels turning, especially when you’re talking about really intellectual, heady people. So I kind of went there, and then I was like, ‘Okay, now I should go to the autobiography.’ And then I started reading his books, but it’s interesting too when people write their books because these are the things they want you to know, and I was like, ‘What does he want me to know about him? And I’m gonna take that, and then I have to investigate that.’ And then later on, it was just like, ‘Well, now I want to hear what Coretta has to say, and I want to hear what the dad has to say, and I want to see what all the people closest to him have to say about him as well, because those things are important. And then the last piece was just, you know, let it go, and just let it flow and just see what it is.”

Yes, Harrison Jr. and Pierre are playing real people in Genius, and it’s quite important to do their truths justice, but there was also opportunity to make these on-screen versions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X their own to a degree. Here’s how Harrison Jr. put it:

“At the end of the day, I’m still getting a script, right? And I still have words that are inspired by beautiful and talented writers [who’ve] collaborated with historians and done so much research. And, on top of my research, I’m looking at it and I’m kind of like, ‘Well, my job is still to propel the scene forward, and to tell the story that’s on the page, so I have to take what I know and the research that I have and my idea of this person and then try to physicalize it to some extent.’ I took the things that resonated the most with me. I love [that] he has this humor about him. He’s really funny. Or at least he thinks he’s really funny. What I loved about the interviews too, he laughs at his own jokes, and I was like, ‘I’m really doubling down on that. Anytime I think I’m making a funny, I’m gonna laugh first.’ You know what I mean? [Laughs] These are the things that bring a lot of charm and charisma, and the things that we can relate to. This is what makes him a person to me. He will always be this brilliant mind and this incredible orator and this philosopher and this man of God, but what’s he like when he’s tickled at his own jokes? Those are the things that make me happy.”

In Pierre’s case, he found his experience playing Malcolm X being guided by the man himself. Here’s how he put it:

“I think, largely, I was just guided by Malcolm’s immeasurable amount of centered energy he has. I was really guided by that. You know, it can be a lot when you’re going through a filming process and you’re a month in, you have five months remaining, it’s on you, long days, long nights, turnarounds. I think I, a lot the time, would rely on Malcolm’s grounding, Malcolm’s centered nature to guide me through that in a way that protected my well-being and kept me focused on the goal and the objective at hand.”

Eager to hear more from Pierre and Harrison Jr. on their experience making Genius MLK/X and their journeys in film and television thus far, including making the highly anticipated The Lion King prequel, Mufasa, due out later this year? Be sure to watch our full Collider Forces conversation in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the interview in podcast form below: