‘Genius: MLK/X’ Los Angeles premiere: In-depth panel discussion with cast and crew of National Geographic limited series [Transcript]

The premiere of National Geographic’s “Genius: MLK/X” was held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles on Monday, January 29. Following a star-studded red carpet and screening of the first episode titled “Graduation,” a panel was hosted by civil rights advocate and law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. Panelists included executive producers Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Brian Grazer, actors Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Martin Luther King, Jr.), Weruche Opia (Coretta Scott King), Aaron Pierre (Malolm X), Jayme Lawson (Betty Shabazz), showrunners Raphael Jackson Jr. and Damione Madedon, director Channing Godfrey Peoples and writer Jeff Stetson. Read the partial transcript from the event below. 

Episode 1 (“Graduation”) is an intense focus on the formative years of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and their experiences and relationships as young children and teens that shape and influence the iconic figures they would become. Malcolm’s release from prison and King’s graduation from Boston University begin their respective journeys that will one day change the nation, but also begin a budding rivalry.

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The first two episodes of “Genius: MLK/X” premiere February 1 on NatGeo, with two episodes airing each week through February. 22. The series streams next day on both Disney+ and Hulu.

SEE ‘Genius: MLK/X’ trailer: Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Aaron Pierre team up to ‘fight against oppression’ [WATCH]

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

First of all, I want to congratulate all of you for new storytelling and an entirely new gaze on a story that most people thought they knew. So to be able to bring something new to something that is established is really an accomplishment. So there’s so much in this for everybody. For people who think they know the story of Malcolm and Martin and Coretta and Betty, there’s newness here.

For those who haven’t been introduced to Coretta and Betty in particular, there is something new here. There’s so much. So it’s actually a forbidding undertaking to tell an old story with a new gaze. So I want to talk to all of you about how this happened. So it’s said that creative opportunity actually comes when the opportunity meets with preparation. I have this word I use intersection, so this is an intersection of opportunity and preparation. This isn’t a story that just started yesterday, just this production. So Brian, I want to start with you, because this is the first time that this series has had two heroes, two geniuses, but it didn’t start that way. So how did it start and what was your inspiration for initially telling the story of Martin Luther King?

Brian Grazer:

Well, the first 10 hours was on Albert Einstein, so that set a very high bar. We then always had Martin Luther King in mind, and it just somehow didn’t, for a lot of reasons I guess, didn’t… Because it had been a movie, it had been many different things, taken different forms. It didn’t maybe have the hook that was needed to propel it. So that’s sort of when it was introduced. And then again, we had this very, almost a very rigid definition as to who should be the next genius. Of course, Picasso was second, Aretha Franklin was third. I had the great joy of being able to work with Reggie on a very successful television show called ‘Swagger.’

My recollection was it was Reggie that was able to say or connected to me and said, ‘You can do it this way and through this narrative device.’ And so I could be stand corrected on that, but that was my recollection. And I just thought that was a brilliant way to do it. It was very easy to evangelize that to the group. Of course, Gina was always on board, and so that’s kind of how it worked. But I like the idea of doing it a lot, because I’ve never seen both paths by two different visionaries going towards the same goal, but such different approaches to it. I thought what a mission that was and a movement in fact. And what better way to give life again to a very important movement that still should have life to it would be to do it this way through cinematic images that really bring, pull people in and cause you to remember and/or experience for the first time what those journeys would be. So that’s kind of how it came to be.

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

So Gina and Reggie, let me come to you. There are least two ways in which this narrative is new. One is putting them together, Malcolm and Martin. The second is broadening the condition of their possibility by including their partners in this and giving them a full narrative arc. They don’t show up just when Malcolm and Martin see them, but they have a whole life. So Gina, let me start with you. Why was it important to tell these stories together?

Gina Prince-Bythewood:

Reg and I talked a lot about this growing up. So often we’re told you have to choose between Martin and Malcolm, who do you identify with? Who do you want to follow? But we knew that they were both integral to the movement. They both had the same goal, they just had different means of going about it. And the more that we got into the research, we realized how close they were coming towards the end of their lives to each other. And so we really wanted to be able to tell that story. It was also exciting, because this is a limited series. We had eight hours, so we thought of this as an eight-hour film, and we knew that gave us a space to really open it up and as we say, ‘Take them off the T-shirts’ and make them real and tangible and just show the full breadth of their humanity, show them as humans. And that included not only Malcolm, Martin, but Betty and Coretta, as you’ll see as the series continues.

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

And so, Reggie, I wanted to ask you this, sort of the conceptual and the visual point of departure for this was that one photo, that one meeting of Malcolm and Martin and they never had the opportunity to meet again. So we know that. We know that visual is a point of departure, but you also have another visual that was the point of departure, particularly for Coretta and Betty that has resonated with you. Can you say something about that?

Reggie Rock Bythewood:

Sure. Decades ago, Nelson Mandela came to visit the United States and he came to visit Harlem and I was there, it was 125th Street. There were maybe 1,000 people there in the street and somehow I managed to be in the third row. And there was a moment where Betty Shabazz was introduced to Winnie Mandela. They ran across the stage to each other. They hugged, they held onto each other and they cried. It’s the one visual that I remember from that moment. So that was very impactful, always haunted me. And it was really interesting talking to Gina about that moment when we were constructing that. Let me just say something else about another meeting. In the ’80s there was a seminal piece of work by one of my literary heroes, a play called, ‘The Meeting,’ written by Jeff Stetson. It was so much fun. Once we got everyone on board with this vision of Malcolm and Martin, it was fun to go back to Jeff and say, ‘Hey man, come right the pilot.’ And it was really great.

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

Well, Jeff, let me bring you in on that. As Reggie said, your play, ‘The Meeting,’ imagined a dialogue and interaction between the two that did some work in challenging the idea, not only that they were opposites, but one was favored in the American story and the other one was disfavored in the American story. So why was it important for you then, and why is it important for us now to rethink that framing around Malcolm and Martin?

Jeff Stetson:

Well, we need heroes, and they were heroes. I wrote the play, because this country has a tendency to pit one leader against another, and it reduced its complex issues in very simple ways. So the civil rights period was 10 years, 1954 to 1964, as if civil rights happens at a particular date or ends ever. They saw Martin as the dreamer who saw freedom and justice through nonviolence, and they saw Malcolm as the revolutionary who saw freedom by any means necessary.

No dreamer who wants justice doesn’t understand that it comes with a revolution. And no revolutionary can be a revolutionary without understanding the vision of the dream. So I wrote the play, because I was concerned that young people in particular didn’t know much about Malcolm and Martin other than the most superficial way. This play was written in 1984, 40 years ago. It had been produced in every state, more than a dozen countries. And the thing that’s so interesting is when I hear from people in Jordan, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, they know more about their contributions than this country does. The meeting is a play that takes place the evening of Malcolm’s home being bombed on Valentine’s Day one week before his assassination.

And I wanted to write a play where I knew the people that would come to see a play about Dr. King would be fine, but the folks that loved Malcolm probably wouldn’t go. The people who love Malcolm probably wouldn’t go see a play about Dr. King. So how do you form a structure where people with very different views, very different backgrounds, can somehow be inspired by these two men? There’s a device that I used, if some of you recall, who may have seen the play, where on Sunday matinees, it’s always very interesting, because Sunday matinees, you have sisters that just come out of church and they’re all dressed in their Sunday best, and they wear the hats and they come looking to make sure I treat Dr. King well.

And then there’s a bunch of folks that come in and say, “No, you’re not going to mess with Malcolm.” And so I use a device where Malcolm is really hard on Dr. King for about 15 to 20 minutes, because he wants this man to understand that if you commit solely to nonviolence, everyone’s going to get killed. So after about 20 minutes of badgering King, they sit at a table and they reach out and their hands touch and they go into an arm wrestle. Malcolm wins. The church sisters were very upset.

Another 20 minutes in the play, King has had enough and says, “Okay, let’s have a rematch,” which amuses Malcolm, because he’s prepared to inflict suffering if he, Dr. King, is prepared to endure it. And this time Dr. King wins and the audience completely shifts again. The sisters from church are ready to sing Negro spirituals, and Malcolm’s people are very upset. At the end of the play, there’s a resolution where these men understand that the battle is not about some esoterical thing, it’s about family, it’s about love, it’s about community. And they decide, well, we haven’t been able to decide anything, so let’s do another arm wrestle and declare a winner. And this time they really go at it. It looks like Malcolm’s going to win, it looks like Dr. King’s going to win. And finally they just can’t take it anymore and they call a truce.

What’s interesting about that dynamic, which is why I think it’s at the heart of the series, is that by that time in the play, this audience doesn’t want either man to lose, and if possible, they want both men to win. And when that arm wrestle is over, Dr. King looks at a tired Malcolm rubbing his hand and says, ‘Just imagine what we could have accomplished if we had joined hands and fought, moved in the same direction.’

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

And the series captures that as its essence, the gaze shifts. It’s not Malcolm and Martin looking across at each other. It’s Malcolm and Martin looking at this problem that our country has been born in and continues to grapple with. So speaking of sourcing, so there are multiple sources, and one of the most unusual things about this series is the workshopping that happened, the period of engaging multiple sources and even debates. So I want to ask Damione and Raphael, say a little bit more about how this process of gathering various experts and people with different perspectives on Malcolm and Martin, how did it work and how can the viewer see things in this series that came out of that?

Raphael Jackson Jr.:

Well, it was very exhaustive, but it was something that was necessary for us to do before we put pen to pad. We had a think tank for I think over a month. And what we really wanted to do was gain as much information as we possibly could to be able to tell the story about Martin and Malcolm and Betty and Coretta from a humanistic standpoint. So we had people like Jamal Joseph, Dr. Peniel Joseph, who wrote the book, ‘Sword and the Shield.’ We had Dr. Barbara Reynolds. We were blessed to have Ambassador Shabazz also a part of the project. And each person gave us a wealth of knowledge that we’re able to kind of pick and choose and see what we can impart within the series that hopefully the audience can see something within themselves during that. So for us, again, it was something that we had to absolutely do to try to get and create a rich story for the audience.

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

So what was the discovery? What was something that came out of that process that showed up in the series?

Damione Macedon:

Everything. We went into this eyes wide open. We were very confident in what we thought we knew on day one of that think tank. And I joked, Raphael and I would talk to each other on the chat and say, ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that.’ And it illuminated to us that if we were having these aha moments on day one, our audience would have those same aha moments in the series. And everything from the fact that Martin and Malcolm both loved ice cream to Coretta’s passion and talent for singing was things that came out of that think tank and made it to the screen that myself, Raphael, Jeff, our writers who were also in this room helped bring to life, because we all were having those moments consistently illuminating to us that these men and women were not just the civil rights icons that we know them to be, but they were human beings. And so that is what we chased and helped us to create the thematic engine of the story that we did.

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

Yeah. And that then leads to the actors who embody these new representations. You know what stands out of so many things, one of the things that is such a vivid reminder of Malcolm and Martin is how young they were. We don’t think about the fact that neither one of them lived to be 40. I mean, it is shocking. And at the same time, I think perhaps the hardest, toughest audience for all of you are those of us who grew up with them. We have a sense of who they are. We think we knew them. We think we know them. So that is both a reality and a challenge for each of you, which you handled magnificently.

It makes me wonder, number one, why? Why you said yes to something that is such a challenge. It’s not as though you were inhabiting the lives of characters that people all over the world don’t know. I mean, this is a real challenge and what you learned in the process of preparing for it. So Kelvin, I’m going to start with you. Martin Luther King is perhaps the most recognizable order of the 20th century, which makes everybody the judge, the critic, they’re all standing there waiting to see how are you going to do Martin. So first of all, why did you take that challenge? And second of all, how did you step into it? What did you do to prepare yourself?

Kelvin Harrison Jr.:

A tall order is an understatement. That was a lot. Okay. And honestly, I’m still kind of confused as to how I got here. I’m looking at all these amazing people with all this education and I’m just like, ‘Okay, we’re doing this.’ But look, Mr. Stetson is right. I grew up in New Orleans and at the same time we have this idea of Dr. King. He’s on statues, he has a national holiday. We celebrate him in Black History month. So I have an understanding that I’m here today because of Dr. King. Yet I’m listening to all this stuff and I’m learning going through this process and I’m like, ‘There’s so much I didn’t know.’ So the fact that I was even terrified in the first place is huge. I didn’t even have a full understanding of who I was about to walk into, yet I still said originally when they asked me and they said, ‘They would like to see you, Kelvin, for Dr. King,’ I said, ‘No.’

And the reason I said no, because I was like, I haven’t lived enough life. I haven’t even gotten where I wanted to get in my career yet to be able to have the craftsmanship to be able to craft Dr. King the way he deserves to be crafted. And so I told them, I said, ‘No, thank you.’ And then they came back to me and they said, ‘All right, Kelvin, read the first episode at least, and meet with us.’ And so I met with them and I expressed my imposter syndrome, which is this feeling-

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

We all have it.

Kelvin Harrison Jr.:

Exactly. This feeling that I haven’t earned it, right? And they told me, they said, ‘Well, Dr. King was so young when he started all this. The Montgomery bus boycott, it happened when he was like 26. The MIA, the Montgomery Improvement Association when he became president, he was still in his early 20s.’ So you look at this and you kind of go, ‘Okay, he also probably didn’t really know what was next. He also was terrified. He also had anxiety and fear and just this sense of imposter syndrome as if he hasn’t earned what his father clearly decided that he did.’ He was like, ‘You have the world.’ And they said, ‘Lean into that, and that’s going to offer us a real tangible take on Dr. King.’

Kimberlé Crenshaw:

I just want to lift up something you said earlier that we all know and see the Dr. King who stood at the podium, you were trying to capture the moments before, the moments in between, the moments of him being him rather than him performing a civil rights leader. And that was so much of what you captured. Aaron, you talked about truth being a motivator for you both as an actor and as an objective in the representation. Can you say something more about that here?

Aaron Pierre:

Yeah, I think for me personally, that is one of my key motivations whenever I have the opportunity to be part of a story to pursue truth. So yeah, yeah, that’s the key for me. I’m always in pursuit of truth, authenticity, and that was definitely a key objectivity here.

The first two episodes “Genius: MLK/X” premiere on February 1 on NatGeo, with two episodes airing each week through February. 22. The series streams next day on both Disney+ and Hulu.

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