Essence Fest 2023: Exclusive: Reggie Rock Bythewood and Gina Prince-Bythewood talk Swagger Season 2
Currently playing on Apple TV+ is the second season of its acclaimed series Swagger, which stars O’Shea Jackson Jr., Isaiah Hill, Shinelle Azoroh, Academy Award nominee Quvenzhané Wallis, Tristan Mack Wilds, Caleel Harris, Tessa Ferrer, James Bingham, Solomon Irama, Ozie Nzeribe, Jason Rivera, Christina Jackson and Sean Baker. The new additions include Orlando Jones and Shannon Brown.
Season 2 of the acclaimed series, “Swagger,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and debuted on Apple TV+ on Friday, June 23 followed by one new episode weekly every Friday through August 11.
Inspired by NBA superstar Kevin Durant’s experiences, “Swagger” explores the world of youth basketball, and the players, their families and coaches who walk the fine line between dreams and ambition, and opportunism and corruption. Off the court, the show reveals what it’s like to grow up in America. Viewers can catch up on season one of "Swagger," now streaming globally on Apple TV+.
In season two, we meet the man-children Jace, Phil, Nick, Musa, Drew and Royale as they are entering their senior year of high school. All but Phil will be attending Cedar Cove Prep; a predominantly White institution where wealthy board members control the entire operation from the hiring of faculty to the enrollment of students. It is a school of power and influence. For all of their academic success, their basketball program has not been competitive until Emory Lawson, the athletic director, managed to acquire the Swagger players. Almost overnight, Cedar Cove’s basketball program becomes elite, attracting the attention of Alonzo Powers from Gladiator Sneakers. Games are attended by top college scouts from the nation and are live-streamed for thousands of fans.
With winning comes scrutiny and the players find themselves under a microscope as they vie for a national high school championship. Everything is going right in the life of Jace Carson and his family. Jenna is renting a house in a residential neighborhood and her cosmetic sales business is booming. Then, a video surfaces that threatens to destroy it all. It is surveillance footage of Coach Warwick, Crystal’s former coach, being beat down in an alley. The attackers are masked but Coach Warwick believes he has found evidence proving the Swagger players were involved. As this speculation reaches the public eye and social media, the bond of brotherhood the players have built is tested. Their once promising futures are in jeopardy.
Reggie Rock Bythewood serves as creator, showrunner as well as directs three episodes this season. Throughout Reggie’s career he has made timely and timeless character-driven stories aimed to challenge audiences’ perspectives in different ways. “Swagger” represents that latest artistic vision and community. Reggie and Gina Prince Bythewood’s company Undisputed Cinema has “Genius: MLX/X” as one of their upcoming projects as well (no launch date yet), etc. Gina, who recently directed the acclaimed “The Woman King,” is onboard as a consulting producing.
During Essence Fest, Blackfilmandtv.com spoke with Reggie and Gina about the process of getting Season 2 underway and how to get more folks to see the series,
Going back to Season 1, how long did it take before they renewed it?
Reggie Rock Bythewood: So at the end of season one, there were rumblings that they will pick it up for season two, but it took a few months after that to become official because there were other things that the studio were working out. And so like, maybe a couple months after season one it became official.
Did you have season two mapped out or you did wait for the renewal to know where you wanted to go with the series
Reggie Rock Bythewood: I knew where I wanted to go. So much of Swagger is loosely based on Kevin Durant's life, and it was a launching pad for us. It’s inspired by our kids, the sons that Gina and I have. Our youngest was a high school senior at the time when we were writing season two. He's going to play on Division 1 baseball at UCLA. So it's very similar, like high stakes, decisions, and every game felt like it had its own urgency. He's just awesome, like growing up and growing into his manhood. So it was really amazing to just use that as a mirror to build characters.
Having mentioned that, how did you balance that with your own personal lives, and throwing in what we know based on Durant's.
Reggie Rock Bythewood: One of the great things with KD was that there was never any pressure to make it like a biopic, which is something I really needed to find my emotional connection with the story. That was very important. Also, we didn't do it as a period thing. So I wanted to do a contemporary. Therefore, in season one, we're able to deal with the pandemic, the aftermath of George Floyd and here, season two is just tripping off of how all of a sudden, critical race theory has become a big campaign marker for conservatives. If you have a inclusive curriculum, that's a threat to America. So I really wanted to just just deal with that. So much of it is to kids and to society; and just organically, KD gave us so many amazing stories that just found its way into the narrative.
Gina, you and Reggie have worked on a series before, together. How did you come into the mix with this series?
Gina Prince-Bythewood: I’m a consulting producer on the show. We always help each other on all our work. Whether we have a title or not. For this, I just wanted to be a part of it. Reg wrote a beautiful pilot, I knew what he wanted to be with the show. It really is a love letter to our two sons, and what they've gone through as student athletes, but also to be a part of that show that shows why it started with Black boys and now Black young men in America in a different way. That goes against tropes and stereotypes. And I'd love that for our boys. And I'd love for viewers to be able to see that so I just want to be a part of it.
Reggie Rock Bythewood (talking to Gina): But one of the things that was was helpful, even in doing Swagger, we work very closely with each other when you were casting Love & Basketball, and it was really interesting process because you audition real ballplayers and actresses. And when it came down to making a decision, you cast the actress and trained her to play ball and I was really looked at that as a template. And probably thought that was the way I was gonna go, so I auditioned some actors. I auditioned ballplayers. But I went the other way, because Isaiah Hill is so authentic as a character in this and is just like the real life character. So instead of casting an actor, and giving them months of training to play ball, I cast the ball player and gave him a bunch of training back and it really just worked out beautifully.
Now that we're at season two, people can be committed, because they know, the network's committed to the show. How do you get people to watch Swagger if they didn't catch on to Season One?
Reggie Rock Bythewood: From a marketing standpoint, marketing buys, social media, and all that support. But I am honestly a believer that the strongest marketing is word of mouth. When people see that this is a show that gets the audience at the edge of the seat. There's so much truth and humanity in our show. Also, the level of basketball is amazingly high level. And so proud of the way we shot basketball, Kevin Durant is an exec producer, so I had to get the ball right. But really, I like the stories we’re telling about these young people growing up in America. I’m really, really happy with how many people I've heard from that say that watch the show with their family. And so I just hope that the word of mouth and all the other efforts that are out here keeps spreading.
Gina Prince-Bythewood: The beauty of streaming is that all of season one is right there. You can watch it firsthand and then move right in the season two.