NYFF 2022 Exclusive: Jalyn Hall on playing Emmett Till in Chinonye Chukwu's Till
Hitting Select Theaters on October 14th and then Everywhere on October 28th from Orion Pictures is director Chinonye Chukwu’s Till, starring Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till Mobley and Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till. The film had its World Premiere at the 60th New York Film Festival.
Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler), whose pursuit of justice for her 14-year-old son Emmett Louis Till (Hall) became a galvanizing moment that helped lead to the creation of the civil rights movement. As Time Magazine reported, “…thanks to a mother’s determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn’t see.” Mamie’s decision to have an open casket at Emmett’s funeral, and to have Jet magazine publish David Jackson’s funeral photos, was driven by her motivation to ensure people everywhere knew what had happened to her son.
Till stars Danielle Deadwyler (Mamie Till Mobley), Jalyn Hall (Emmett Till), Frankie Faison (John Carthan), Haley Bennett (Carolyn Bryant), Sean Patrick Thomas (Gene Mobley), John Douglas Thompson (Moses Wright), Jayme Lawson (Myrlie Evers), Tosin Cole (Medgar Evers) and Whoopi Goldberg (Alma Carthan).
Produced by Keith Beauchamp, Barbara Broccoli, Whoopi Goldberg, Thomas Levine, Michael Reilly and Frederick Zollo, the film is written by Michael Reilly, Keith Beauchamp and Chinonye Chukwu.
For Jalyn Hall, this is his biggest role so far in his young career. Best known for his role as Dillon James on The CW’s hit football drama All American, he has also recurred on Netflix’s Family Reunion, ABC’s Black-ish and CBS’s NCIS: LA. He had a lead role on the film side in Joe Robert Cole’s Netflix pic, All Day and a Night and in Miles Warren’s feature debut Bruiser, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Upcoming projects include a lead role in The Crossover, which is based on the Newbery Award-winning book and will be seen on Disney+.
Blackfilmandtv.com’s Wilson Morales caught up with Hall as he spoke about playing Emmett Till, his other lead role in Bruiser and his other future projects.
