TRAINED FOR ‘ TRAINING DAY’
Cornwell says Chicago stages prepared him well for CBS cop series
Many hours spent on stages in Chicago led up to Justin Cornwell’s debut this week on “Training Day,” a new CBS series inspired by the 2001 film that won Denzel Washington his second Academy Award.
“I really needed to pay my dues— doing theater in Chicago— or else I would never have been prepared to tackle this incredible opportunity,” said Cornwell, calling from the police drama’s set. “Training Day” will premiere at 9 p. m. Thursday ( WBBM- Channel 2).
Reflecting back on his time in Our Town, Cornwell said, “Those five years I spent in Chicago, I really felt like I found an artistic home. When I came up from Louisville [ Kentucky, his hometown], I hadn’t done much: a couple of high school plays and some things I did studying at the University of Louisville.”
But in fairly short order, Cornwell started getting small roles, walk- ons and a bit of television production work in Chicago. Key theatrical opportunities came his way at Northlight Theatre and at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. “Chicago was a great place to learn real theater. … It taught me so much.”
As for the new “Training Day” series, Cornwell noted one key change from the movie. “While my character of Kyle Craig is much like the character Ethan Hawke played in the original movie, there are differences. I play a [ Los Angeles] police officer who has just been bumped up to detective, but only to infiltrate Bill Paxton’s character’s unit,” where corruption is suspected.
“It’s like the Ethan Hawke character, if [ in the movie] he had been part of Internal Affairs. … Of course, like in the film, Bill Paxton [ playing a character loosely based on Washington’s] and I play two unlikely individuals— two very different kinds of cops — who are thrown together and then take off on quite the wild ride.”
‘ Growing Up Smith’ stars have local theater ties
Chicago native Roni Akurati, who grew up in Lake Zurich, credits the time spent honing his acting in such local productions as “The Jungle Book” and “A Christmas Carol” at the Goodman Theatre ( where he played Tiny Tim) as “teaching me so much about what it takes to be a good actor.”
“Learning to listen and being able to concentrate well” were important lessons he learned at an early age, he said.
“Growing Up Smith,” starring Akurati as an Indian boy named Smith, growing up in a small American town in 1979, closed the AsianAmerican Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center last year. It is coming out Friday at the AMC South Barrington theaters.
The 10- year- old boy attempts to both embrace his new country’s lifestyle but still maintain ties to his native land’s culture and traditions. The film also stars Jason Lee as the “good ol’ boy” next- door neighbor to Smith and his family.
Along with starring in the film as Smith’s father, Anjul Nigamco- wrote the screenplay and explained that much of it is “based on stories from my own life— my own family, who experienced similar circumstances to what the characters experience in the film.” Nigam himself has often worked in Chicago theater— including the Goodman, where he appeared in a production of “The Merchant of Venice” back in the ’ 90s.
The older actor joked that “it took so long to get this movie made— originally I was supposed to play the role of Smith! Now I’m too old, even to play the older Smith!”
Netflix buys Sundance hit by Chicago co- writer
One of the films that generated a lot of buzz at the just- concluded Sundance Film Festival was director Dee Rees’ “Mudbound,” starring Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund and Mary J. Blige— based on a screenplay penned by Rees and Chicagoan Virgil Williams.
The film was sold to Netflix at Sundance for $ 12.5 million, reportedly the largest deal inked at this year’s festival. Adapted by Williams and Rees from Hilary Jordan’s bestselling novel, “Mudbound” focuses on the lives of two men who return from World War II to work on a farm in rural Mississippi, where they face racism and a struggle to adjust to civilian life after their military service.