Courtney B. Vance Says 'Lovecraft Country' Could Be the 'Roots' of 2020
Spoiler Warning: The following story contains spoilers for Lovecraft Country's second episode. Do not read if you haven't watched it yet and plan on doing so!
Courtney B. Vance is one of those actors you just know. One of those guys who pops up in a movie or show, and he's instantly familiar. You're sure you've seen him before. You know his face, you know his voice, and you know his aura.
One place you've seen him might've been 2016's American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, which won him an Emmy for playing Johnnie Cochran. Others might remember him from 111 episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
In his newest project, HBO's horror/sci-fi/fantasy/historical fiction thriller Lovecraft Country, he leans heavily into that familiarity, playing a character in Uncle George Freeman whose warmth is his defining quality. Not only is the role a sharp turn from his quick-tongued performance as Cochran, but the show itself, he says, is different from anything else.
"We’ve never seen something this big in Chocolate on television in recent memory," he says, referring to the primarily-Black cast and crew behind Lovecraft. "I know Roots is a huge, huge piece like that. But this is, for the time, I guess this may be the Roots of our day. And this is helmed by an African American woman. That in and of itself is different, and significant."
That African American woman, Misha Green, is why Vance is part of the project in the first place. He was a fan of her last series, the little-seen but widely-praised Underground, which aired on WGN for two seasons between 2016 and 2017. So when Green and Vance met, he knew he was going to be game for whatever she had up her sleeve. The fact that he got to do something somewhat against type—he calls it "an action flick every 9 or 10 days"—and to film it in Chicago, his favorite city, was a bonus.
He also mentions how much he loved working with co-stars including Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, and Michael K. Williams. He enjoyed spending time with this cast so much it made the 15-16 hour production days fly by. "It was just a lovefest," he says. "You just become family. In addition to already being family."
Another bonus was seeing just how much love, infrastructure, and support HBO has been giving Green all along the way. In fact, he compares the way the network is treating Lovecraft Country to the way they treated one of the biggest shows of all time, Game of Thrones.
"This was their footprint, and they’ve given it to an African American woman to shepherd, and to take into directions that we haven’t ever gone in before," he says. "They are letting us know: this is big, and we are putting our entire company behind this. And we’re telling you that this is good."
While the show makes a point of bending genres, above all else it's a horror story. With Lovecraft a part of its title, that part comes naturally (and Vance didn't read any of the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, himself an avowed racist, before production. "It wasn’t necessary, for me, to know where I was," he says), with both literal and real-life monsters included. But that wasn't the part that drew Vance in. He's drawn, really, to the story being good, genre be damned.
"I’m not a huge horror film buff. I’m a huge story buff. If it’s a great story, I’m in it," he says. "I haven’t watched all the Freddy Kruegers, and all of the series, because some people are just really into it. That’s not my thing... I’m a fraidy cat."
But that doesn't mean Lovecraft Country was Vance's first foray into horror. He's gone down the wormhole a few times, including semi-recent turns in 2017's The Mummy (with Tom Cruise), and 2011's Final Destination 5 (of the famous Final Destination series). But those genre turns haven't exactly been on the top of his mind when in Lovecraft mode lately.
"You know, I had forgotten I had done those!" he says with a laugh, before recalling a memory of his experience on Final Destination 5. Like Lovecraft Country, those movies often feature gory violence and creative character deaths; his character, a good guy, was killed off without the novelty of a memorable exit.
"I was like ‘Can’t you give me something?’ Everybody else is getting their head blown off, I’m just getting shot in the foot, and then bleed out," he says. "But the director was like, ‘That’s the power of it, Courtney. It’s a simple death.’ I was like ‘OK, you got it. Simply kill me!’"
His episode 2 exit from Lovecraft Country is a bit splashier than being shot in the foot and bleeding out, but it's far from a head-exploder: mid-way through the episode, Uncle George is shot in the gut. A villain, Christina Braithwhite (Abbey Lee) promises that magic will revive him, but other things get in the way, and Uncle George appears to die just before the credits roll.
Vance is cagey to discuss this specific plot detail, and it's an interesting one, considering the Uncle George character survives the entirety of Matt Ruff's source material novel. With magic and sorcery a core part of Lovecraft Country, it would be foolish to rule out a return.
Vance is adamant that an entertainment landscape where Lovecraft Country can thrive is one that's significantly different from what it was even just a few years ago, and credits a few projects in particular for fueling that change. He mentions Jordan Peele's Get Out as a paradigm shifting moment for the horror genre, bringing Black creators, casts, and audiences into the horror world in a real way (and in a movie that ended up winning it's writer/director an Oscar, for that matter). He also mentions the fact that female directors of late have been coming into their own, noting that The Old Guard, released on Netflix last month, was directed by a Black woman, Gina Prince-Blythewood. That marks a major milestone for the action/comic book genre.
But on a level larger than genre, he says the massive success of Black Panther prompted an even industry-wide shift—one that eventually paved the way to HBO fully investing in Lovecraft Country.
"What a concept! That we actually spend money," he says. "We actually go to the movies, and we actually spend a lot of money on entertainment. I think that’s being reflected in how they’re positioning this piece to be presented to the world."
And with Lovecraft Country in that ever-important Game of Thrones HBO timeslot (9:00 sharp on Sunday nights), it's yet another opportunity for the game to be completely changed. Based on the early returns, too, with Lovecraft Country a hit among both critics and fans, it's hard to say anything other than so far, so good.
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