‘Cloak & Dagger’ stars are happy the series is tackling real issues

Olivia Holt arrives at the table in The Little Jewel of New Orleans restaurant a few minutes before her “Cloak & Dagger” co-star, Aubrey Joseph. She jokes that the delay was planned to create the same anticipation that comes in the first few episodes of the new Freeform series.

Although Holt and Joseph play characters who are linked together through a yearsago accident that leaves them both with superpowers (he’s the cloak and she’s the dagger), viewers didn’t get to see them work together right away in the Freeform show that airs at 8 p.m. Thursdays and premiered last week. The young actors eventually get to show off the chemistry that earned them the role in the latest TV series based on a Marvel Comics property.

Holt likes that “Cloak & Dagger” starts as a slow boil.

“I always like when I am watching a TV series or a film where you get to understand the characters as individuals first. I think it makes you respect them and empathize with them a little more,” Holt says. “I personally like that it took a minute to get to know them a little more because they are very complicated individuals to begin with.”

The TV series has taken great liberties with the origin story presented in 1982 in issue No. 64 of “Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man,” but the primary element of two young people dealing with angst while coming to terms with their special abilities is a thread from the comic books that fits Freeform’s programming style. Holt’s Tandy Bowen is dealing with the continuing aftermath of the tragic death of her father and a worthless mother (Andrea Roth), while Joseph’s Tyrone Johnson has been emotionally scarred by watching a family member gunned down by police.

“I think the timing is just right,” Joseph says. “Black men in general have been dehumanized and females minimized. This is the jump start for a new normal. We are seeing a lot more black heroes and females with power. I feel like this show is going to impact people so deeply.

“Having a young black male to look up to, as far as I am concerned, is unreal.”

Holt stresses “Cloak & Dagger” didn’t come into existence just so there would be more diverse superheroes — although that is a major plus — but it’s designed to have the pair deal with real world problems. The show may be set in a world of superpowers, but each story is grounded.

“We focus on a lot of heavy topics, from sexual assault to police brutality,” Holt says. “It is interesting timing that while we were in New Orleans shooting the show, all the movements started in the country. I think we started feeling far more passionate about the writing because a lot of what was happening was already there in the scripts.

“It is so important for us to tell a real story. Don’t glamorize it. Don’t sugarcoat it. The fact we get to start a conversation about something real that is happening in society right now is very important to us. We want to make people feel like they are not alone. As millennials, we want our generation to have a voice and that is one of the goals of the show.”