Antioch’s McCreary gets ‘Story of Us’ to TV
Producer LoriMcCreary knows the awful feeling one can experience when traversing a media landscape riddled with discord and dissension. “Every time you turn on the television these days,” she says, “you see things that drive us apart.”
So the Antioch native, as she often does, is taking a different path. Revelations Entertainment, the production company she heads with actor Morgan Freeman, is the force behind a hopeful new documentary series exploring themes that unite humanity. “The Story of Us With Morgan Freeman” premieres at 9 p.m. Oct. 11 on the National Geographic Channel.
“We’ve realized that there’s an audience hungry for programming that reflects more of our interconnectedness,” McCreary says. “This is a series that looks at society and demonstrates the ways in which we’re much more alike.”
Essentially a sequel to “The Story of God,” an Emmy-nominated production that became Nat Geo’s most-watched series ever, “The Story of Us” once again has Freeman taking viewers on a global journey to meet people from various cultures whose lives are shaped by different fundamental forces.
Each of the six hourlong episodes is pegged to a single topic: freedom, peace, love, social division, power and rebellion. Along the way, Freeman engages with a variety of interview subjects, from world leaders like former U. S. president Bill Clinton and Rwanda president Paul Kagame, to ordinary folks like Joshua Coombes, a London hairstylist who began a global social movement called #DoSomethingForNothing, urging people to carry out everyday small acts of kindness.
McCreary claims Freeman has a genuine talent for on-screen interviews.
“One of the things that we learned from ‘ The Story of God’ was how Morgan was able to
out something in these individuals that we might not have otherwise gotten with a journalist or another actor,” she says. “He can really get to the center of these wonderful people and connect on a personal level. So we decided to really lean into that and use Morgan as a superhero to get these more intimate conversations.”
If anyone knows Freeman’s strengths, it’s McCreary. A UCLA grad and current president of the Producers Guild of America (PGA), she first worked with him on the 1993 antiApartheid film “Bopha!,” which he directed. In 1996, they co-founded Revelations Entertainment, with a mission to produce content “that reveals truth.”
“While working on ‘Bopha!’ we realized that, any time there was a creative discussion, we were always arguing fromthe same side. And any time there was a financial discussion, we argued from the same side,” McCreary recalls, explaining how the two formed their bond. “… Morgan is a man without guile. He’s a man of hisword, and his in- tegrity bar is set very high. We’ve been together for 20 years. It’s one of the longest-lasting partnerships in Hollywood.”
That partnership has been the fuel behind a number of feature films, including “Invictus” and “5 Flights Up,” and TV shows like “Madam Secretary,” which launches its fourth season on CBS this Sunday. Freeman directed the opener — a timely episode that has Elizabeth McCord ( Téa Leoni ) dealing with the “fake news” issue.
McCreary describes “Madam Secretary” as a “nice respite” from all the turbulence going on in the world.
“And yet, if you still want your political fix, it gives it to you in a way that allows you to comfortably put your head down on your pillow at night,” she adds.
With her own production company, the lofty PGA position and numerous projects in the pipeline, McCreary, who now lives in Malibu, has certainly come a longway since graduating from Antioch High School in 1979. But she still credits her days with the Storyland Theater — a group she joined as an 8-year-old — and her time working on campus productions and community theater, as her launching pad into the entertainment industry.
“I got the best training I could get,” she says. “It’s my very base. One hundred percent of the credit goes to growing up in Antioch.”
TheHomegrown column is about Bay Area people and places on the screen.