Exclusive: Jurnee Smollett and writer-director Minhal Baig talk We Grown Now
Now playing from Sony Pictures Classics in New York, Los Angeles & Chicago on April 19, 2024, and then nationwide on April 26, 2024 is We Grown Now from writer-director Minhal Baig. Produced by Joe Pirro and Minhal Baig, the cast includes Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez, S. Epatha Merkerson, with Lil Rel Howery and Jurnee Smollett.
Constructed over several decades beginning in the late 1940s, Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing complex embodied contemporary thought on housing and urban development. By 1992, however, the community — and the world — had changed significantly.
Along with his mother Dolores (Jurnee Smollett) and grandmother Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson), 12-year-old Malik (Blake Cameron James) has lived in this community all his life.
The same is true for his best friend Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) and together the boys know every nook, stairway, and rooftop — all of these a playing field for their (sometimes forbidden) adventures. But change is intruding on their childhood idyll. Drugs and crime are seeping into the neighbourhood and, when a sudden tragic event further shakes the families, the children’s future becomes uncertain. As Dolores weighs a new job that would take them to the unfamiliar suburbs, Malik and Eric struggle with accepting that they may have to say goodbye to each other.
Executive producers are Jurnee Smollett, Jeff Skoll, Anikah McLaren, James Schamus, and Carrie Holt de Lama.
Smollett most recently starred in the Amazon MGM Studios legal drama The Burial, alongside Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones. Up next, she will star opposite Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in crime thriller The Order. She also starred in the Netflix original thriller Lou, in which she stars and executive produces alongside Allison Janney. Additional film credits include Netflix’s Spiderhead and Birds of Prey for Warner Bros.
Baig is a Chicago native. Her directorial credits include the shorts After Sophie and Pretext and the feature film Hala, starring Geraldine Viswanathan. She also had an overall writing-producing TV deal with Amazon and worked on the first season of Hulu’s Ramy and the final season of Netflix’s Bojack Horseman.
Blackfilmandtv.com's Wilson Morales talks to Jurnee Smollett and writer-director Minhal Baig about We Grown Now
