By Helena Andrews-Dyer
The plan was to interview Delroy Lindo about his career, to let the journeyman actor point out the road signs that had led him from a Tony nomination for “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” in 1988 to Oscar buzz for “Da 5 Bloods” in 2020 – and all the traffic between.
Lindo caught the acting bug when he was five, and for nearly the same number of decades, he has made a go of it professionally. But like so many well-laid plans, his career didn’t work out as expected.
As is the case with so many of the characters Lindo inhabits – whether it be the Trump-loving Vietnam veteran Paul in “Da 5 Bloods” or the attorney Adrian Boseman in “The Good Fight” – the actor stakes his claim so deep there’s a lot to dig into.
Lindo’s latest role could seem like a detour. Best known as a dramatic actor, the 70-year-old plays Edwin, an impossibly cool formerly incarcerated father trying to reconnect with his daughter, Paige (Kerry Washington), in the new Hulu series “UnPrisoned”.
The show is a love letter to men whose struggles in society are rarely taken seriously. It’s also somehow funny, joyful and a little sitcom-y.
Lindo says that from the outset, he knew the show’s tone would straddle the line between drama and comedy.
“I am not known as a comedic actor, per se,” he said. But, at the first Zoom read-through, Lindo heard the telltale signs that something was working – laughter.
“It was interesting, because one doesn’t aim to be comedic; one aims just to be truthful. I found that as long as I did that, the comedic aspect would take care of itself.”
One particular scene let him know things were clicking. In it, Edwin, who moves in with Paige and her teenage son after 17 years in a federal prison, tells his daughter that her new boyfriend is not, in fact, her boyfriend.
“You are the side piece,” Edwin says bluntly. On-screen Lindo’s delivery is pitch perfect – fatherly advice with a shot of street philosophy.
That moment (and others) is what endeared "UnPrisoned" to me. Edwin strutted like my uncles. He sounded like my cousins. He smiled like the men talking smack over chess tables in city parks.
It’s his judgment-free portrayal of Edwin, a man who’s earnestly trying to live past his mistakes, that provides the show’s glue.
“There are various components of this work that seem to be reaching out and touching people where they are, and that’s extraordinarily rewarding,” Lindo said.
Without the actor’s ease and accessibility, Edwin could slip into stereotype.
The actor, Jonathan Majors, who played Lindo’s son in “Da 5 Bloods”, once told GQ magazine that the veteran actor knew how to take up space.
“And he does something that I think is very difficult for us to do, as black men. It’s to live in your size, completely live in it, not to shy away from it.”
"UnPrisoned" creator Tracy McMillan, who based the show on her “truly crazy” life story, said she envisioned only Lindo playing the role, which is based on her father.
“There was never another actor in my mind for this part,” McMillan said. “He has sensitivity, the grace, the sex appeal, the talent. I mean, his talent is staggering.”
What makes Lindo the kind of actor who can embody the duality of a character? For McMillan, two words keep bubbling up – gravitas and integrity.
Both were apparent when I divulged that I have family members who’ve been in and out of “the system”, the many-headed monster that gobbles up mothers and fathers, leaving children like Paige to fend for themselves and parents like Edwin to come home in search of redemption.
“I assume that it’s resonating with you in some personal ways,” Lindo said of the show.
“My question for you, as somebody who has personal experience with it: Does it make it easier? Does watching this work illuminate anything for you in terms of your experience? How does it land on you?”
Another scene in the show, like many in the eight-episode first season, sneaks up on you. Trying to connect with his teenage grandson, Finn (Faly Rakotohavana), Edwin asks about his absent father.
Finn replies offhandedly, “You can’t miss what you never had, right?”
Edwin doesn’t let his grandson get away with the emotional brush-off. Instead, he pours himself into that gap. “People miss what they lost, Finn. Period,” he says. The replay button was built for scenes like that.
It catches you off guard because the show can feel light. There is a reason therapy sessions are 60 minutes long and not 30. But "UnPrisoned" delivers resonating breakthroughs when it wants to.
The man has so many types of fathers and father figures in his credits – "Crooklyn," "The Cider House Rules," "This Christmas," "The Harder They Fall".
He seems almost built for it, tall and warm-skinned with a commanding voice and piercing eyes that deliver “the look” children know so well. From what does he pull, and what does he want to convey?
“So couple of things before I get to that,” he said.
“My father did not raise me. And not only did my father not raise me, he subjected my mom to unfortunate behaviours. There is a space inside of me that his absence occupies.
“I would posit that that’s true for all of us, whether we recognise it or not,” he said, delivering a therapeutic line reflecting the gravitas McMillan underscored.
But to answer my question. “I don’t approach the roles from the standpoint of how this father is, but who is the human being and what is the human being struggling with it?
“How does this human being communicate with the human beings around him, whether they be his children or whomever?
“Humanity: That’s the gold standard. That’s the North Star. That is the component that consistently gets ignored, frankly, by the culture at large, by the world.
“The lack of willingness or even inability to recognise our humanity? There’s a direct line from that to the violence that we are subjected to,” he said.
To go back to the beginning – of both our conversation and Lindo’s career, on which he embarked at the tail end of the Black Arts Movement, which sought black liberation through art – is his work changing the world? Are characters such as Edwin an antidote?
“I’ve modified that belief over the years,” he said. “Maybe theatre can’t change the world, but what we do creatively can have a direct impact on how people think.
“It may not change the human condition, but certainly it can impact the human condition.”
∎ “UnPrisoned” is streaming on Disney+.