The Underground Railroad
The moments in a Barry Jenkins piece that make my heart swell always involve people holding, comforting, and embracing each other. Think of the scene in Moonlight where Mahershala Ali’s Juan carries and protects a young Chiron over the ocean’s waves; or in the film’s finale when the adult Chiron, then called Black, tucks his head into his lover’s chest; or in If Beale Street Could Talk, when Fonny and Tish hold tight after making love, breathing deep in a way that makes their bodies heave in unison, finding safety in the tiny space they take up together.
“Those are scenes that Barry looks forward to,” Thuso Mbedu says on a Zoom call. She would know. The actor cumulatively spent almost a year shooting with Jenkins on his most ambitious project yet: a 10-part limited series based on Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad, which is on Amazon Prime Video.
Mbedu plays Cora, a young woman who escapes slavery alongside a fellow runaway named Caesar (Aaron Pierre). Cora embarks on a journey across state lines, witnessing varied horrors committed against Black people along the way. There’s a lot of suffering in The Underground Railroad, but Jenkins’s modus operandi is to search for and latch onto those moments of beauty and affection.
“[Barry] knew how heavy Cora’s journey was,” Mbedu says. She describes the relief in those tender moments, when Cora would lay her head and find warmth against Caesar’s broad chest. “To have Cora being held meant giving the audience an opportunity to breathe a little easier, to feel like they are being held and they can smile just as Cora smiles.”
Mbedu is very open, unlike the extremely guarded Cora, who is in a constant state of fight or flight. Of her own accord, Mbedu refers back to her own experiences and traumas, like losing her mother at the age of four, and considers how those moments affect the way she felt during scenes of loss, love, and closure in The Underground Railroad.
She also lightens the inherently heavy conversation with amusing asides about how she talks in circles and how she binged
The Underground Railroad in a weekend against the advice of her director. To that latter point, Mbedu agrees the show is so substantial that it needs to be processed with time and considered with care. There is artistry to be savoured but also traumatizing episodes that require healing.
“I know that Barry comes from a place where he wants to tell the story of what happened because to pretend and erase it would be doing the ancestors a great disservice,” Mbedu says, explaining why depicting graphic scenes of Antebellum-era violence was necessary.
“We’re not here showcasing brutality for the sake of getting a reaction,” she adds. “When Barry shares those moments, it’s not for sensationalism. It’s a matter of giving you a peek [at] what happened as something that is part of a bigger journey.”
Witnessing pain in The Underground Railroad only makes the moments of warmth, joy, and affection feel more immense. Mbedu speaks in awe about how Jenkins made those scenes come alive, like a maestro composing the production design, score, lighting, and editing so precisely to realize the imagery only he sees in his head. On-set, Jenkins would bring Mbedu pieces of the score composed by Nicholas Britell. “He would say, ‘Close your eyes—this is what the scene sounds like.’ ”
There is a scene in the second episode when Cora and Caesar find momentary solace in a deceptively utopian South Carolina society. They attend a regal outdoor ball, dancing in each other’s arms while her playful smile is lit by golden baubles.
“That evening was absolutely mystical,” Mbedu says. “Everybody was merry. We had the violins. We had the atmosphere itself. The crew was feeling lighter because of the nature of the space that we were in.”