The quest for justice, brought to you by an all-star cast. The law has never been so dramatic, or sexy. Deco’s Alex Miranda is here, and he’s wearing his legal briefs.
We’re used to seeing Michael B. Jordan as a superhuman by now, with his larger-than-life performances in “Black Panther” and “Fantastic Four,” but in “Just Mercy,” he has the honor of playing a real-life hero who really has saved lives.
Not all superheroes wear capes.
Michael B. Jordan (as Bryan Stevenson): “Your life is still meaningful, and I’m gonna do everything possible to keep them from taking it.”
Jamie Foxx (as Walter McMillian): “You don’t know what you’re into down here in Alabama, when you’re guilty from the moment you’re born.”
In “Just Mercy,” Michael B. Jordan plays Bryan Stevenson, a real-life Harvard-grad lawyer who took a different path: defending inmates on death row.
Michael B. Jordan: “We had a lot of work to do, to go from meeting Bryan Stevenson, to understanding the work that he’s trying to do, that he’s doing, to reading his memoir.”
Bryan Stevenson: “It’s been incredible to have somebody like that play me. He was so committed to being authentic. The one thing I told him he didn’t have to be authentic about was the body. He could keep the “Black Panther” body. ‘We can let that go. Don’t worry. Don’t go on a lawyer diet or anything.'”
Walter McMillian was one of Stevenson’s first, and most famous, cases. Jamie Foxx plays the innocent man who had all but given up on the system.
Jamie Foxx: “If there was any inhibitions about what capital punishment was, he says, ‘Jamie, imagine that there’s was a basket of apples here, but every 10th apple you ate, you die. Is that basket still cool?’ I said, ‘Oh.'”
Brie Larson takes on Eva Ansley, a woman who stood by Stevenson when it seemed like no one else would.
Alex Miranda: “What did you learn from this real woman who did this real work and continues to do that?”
Brie Larson: “It really shifted my perspective, because so much of my life had been activism on a bigger scale, and this to me was about taking it back — first starting with myself, doing the work I needed to do on myself, and then looking at my community like she did.”
Like Brie, you might not walk out of “Just Mercy” the way you walked in. Case in point: Rob Morgan’s storyline. It’ll break your heart and make you think.
Rob Morgan: “My character shows a person who did actually commit the crime, but once you understand his circumstances, you have to ask yourself, is he really worthy of that kind of punishment?”
“Just Mercy” hits theaters everywhere Friday.
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