Exclusive: Michael K. Williams Talks Crime Thriller ‘Body Brokers’
Currently in theaters and on Digital and On Demand from Vertical Entertainment is the crime thriller Body Brokers, directed and written by John Swab (Run with the Hunted, Let Me Make You a Martyr) and starring Frank Grillo (The Purge franchise, Captain America franchise, The Grey), Melissa Leo (Prisoners, The Fighter, Frozen River), Jack Kilmer (The Nice Guys, Palo Alto), Michael K. Williams (12 Years a Slave, "Boardwalk Empire," "The Wire"), Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day franchise), and Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures, Ginger & Rosa).
Utah (Kilmer) and Opal (Englert) are junkies living on the streets of rural Ohio until a seemingly chance encounter with the enigmatic Wood (Williams) brings them to Los Angeles for drug treatment. Utah appears to find sobriety with the help of treatment center therapist, Dr. White (Melissa Leo), and tech turned love interest, May (Rothe). They soon learn that drug treatment is but a cover for a predatory business, enlisting addicts to recruit other addicts. Utah is no exception. Wood and his drug treatment mogul partner, Vin (Grillo), take Utah under their wing, introducing him to the good life, though Utah's addiction remains his biggest obstacle.
For Williams, who plays Wood, the Flatbush, NY native continues to shine with incredible roles. He just finished playing Montrose Freeman in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, which netted him numerous accolades. With roles in The Wire, Gone Baby Gone, Miracles at St. Anna, Boardwalk Empire, Inherent Vice, Bessie, Superfly, Motherless Brooklyn and When They See Us, Williams has given short of a A effort in his performances. BlackFilmandTV.com caught up with Williams as he spoke about his latest project.
What went into saying yes to this to this project?
Michael K. Williams: The first thing was the storyline. It had a jarring eye opening effect over me when I think of capitalism taking advantage of people who are vulnerable. This takes the cake for me. I just couldn't believe that this is what it was. That was the first thing and then I look at the character Wood. In the world of addiction and recovery, when a person puts the drugs down, that everyday should go back back to normal and be rosy. That couldn't be further from the truth. Drugs are a symptom of the problem.
When the drugs and alcohol are put down, there's still a character defect that will exist in the person and Wood is a perfect example of that. It was a great way to show the experience of recovery as a whole, and not just a portion of it. Normally we'll see a person or a story about the recovery. All they do is focus on the drug addict and what drugs have done to the person. We get to peel back the curtain a little bit and look at other scenarios that deal with recovery and how capitalism plays a part in it. Just because you put down drugs doesn't mean that all of your character defects, or flaws are automatically fixed.
Is there any part of Wood that’s you?
Michael K. Williams: It's no secret that I'm in recovery, so the answer would be yes. There are some parts of Wood that are in me. I never sold drugs. In my right mind, I would never take advantage of someone who was vulnerable. Wood is a capitalist in every sense of the matter.
How was working with Jack Kilmer?
Michael K. Williams: John Swab, who was the director, did a brilliant job with the writing of the script and creating this world. But 90% of the magic that you see with any of my scenes, it is because of wht Jack Kilmer bought to the stage He bought a level of innocence and vulnerability and strength to his character Utah. It jumps off the screen. It's is in his eyes. He really bought this effortlessness to the stage that I just jumped into it.
Throughout the course of production, did you do research?
Michael K. Williams: Everything was on the page. It was in black and white literally. I don't remember having to do much research because John Swab had done it all for me. I just had to come to work, get dressed, hit the stage, and play with Jack in the playground. Everything that you see on that in that movie is on the page, word for word, beat for beat. It was really nothing to research.
You’ve worked a long time on television and on film. You recently did Lovecraft Country, where audiences loved your performance. What did you get out from it?
Michael K. Williams: I am humbled. With Lovecraft in particularly, I was very grateful to be a part of that. If you told me in August of 2019 during production and right before the show aired, that we were going to witness a public lynching right on our cell phones, I would have told you that you were crazy. And yet here we are. So in light of what happened to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and even with what happened n in Washington, we didn't get here overnight. This is poison has been brewing in the foundation of this country since its conception. We have got to cut it out. We have to recognize that we have a sickness in the way that we deal with each other. This is a cancer that has to be cut out. People can make themselves sick over the years from eating from a bad diet, a poor diet, or a poor relationship with exercise.
That's what happened with America. We have a series of all these bad diets, these socially bad things that we have been forced to swallow, or to try to forget. With Lovecraft, we were able to hold that piece of art, like a mirror, to this country, and it gave us a timeline of all these things. All this bad food that we had been digesting as a nation, which is why we're sick now and which is why we're here at this point now. To have that experience to sit down at my home and watch Lovecraft with the rest of the viewing audience around the world, I had to really process that as a black man. Not an artist but just a black man, I had to sit down and process on a cellular level.
What goes into saying yes to the projects you take?
Michael K. Williams: That's easy. Honesty. I could tell within the first 20 pages of a script, if the writer is full of shit or not. I look for honesty. Most of my characters are, at first glance, you don't like them. I know what that feels like, navigating as a dark skinned black man. We have compassion. We have empathy. We just need to be given a chance to show that. That's the first thing I look for in my characters. Where are the opportunities for me to show compassion and empathy, so that the viewing audience that don't understand where a person like this comes from, or how they can reach these decisions, you may not agree with it, but you'll understand how they got to be there. Hopefully, that will leave a person who doesn't understand that a community like that looks like that, or a person that looks like that, that will leave them with some sort of understanding, some sort of compassion and empathy. You don't have to agree with it, but hopefully I could help you get a better understanding how people end up in situations that they do, the characters that I play.