Kindred star Micah Stock on Kevin's dynamic with Dana and his season 1 finale predicament
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WARNING: This post contains spoilers from Kindred season 1.
Kevin Franklin (Micah Stock) found himself living his nightmare in the Kindred season 1 finale.
As the series begins, Kevin is immediately drawn to LA transplant and aspiring soap writer Dana James (Mallori Johnson). Their budding romance gets complicated when Dana uncontrollably starts getting pulled into the past, and Kevin steps up to be her partner on the wild journey. Kevin's biggest worry as they venture into the past and are separated from one another is that he'll get left there alone — which is exactly how the first season ends.
We spoke to Stock about being part of the Octavia Butler adaptation, working with Johnson, and how Kevin will handle the 1800s on his own.
Richard Ducree/FX Micah Stock as Kevin Franklin
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How familiar were you with Kindred before landing the role? What research did you do about the book itself or the time period?
MICAH STOCK: I was familiar with Octavia Butler prior as a cultural icon and thinker, but had only read Parable of the Sower. When this came my way, I dove into the script and was inspired by the fact that it had Branden [Jacob-Jenkins]'s name on it. Immediately after reading that, I dove into the novel. Certainly we dove into the book itself because for a lot of us it felt fruitful to have this connection to Octavia's work. Everybody sort of went off of their path, but we had shared readings of passages from the novel. We were able to talk to this wonderful woman named Ayana Jamieson, who runs the Octavia Butler Legacy Project, and she was an incredible resource. I did have a few reference books for the time period, but the truth is from Kevin's perspective, he knows what he learned from his high school history class. I had a few books on my reference shelf to go back for certain factoids, but deep research into the period wasn't part of it.
The present on Kindred is our present instead of the 1970s. From your perspective, how does that change the Dana-Kevin dynamic we see compared to the original text?
That was a choice that Branden made, but to me it makes perfect sense. The book came out in the late 1970s and Octavia was trying to hold a mirror to the present, and now the present has changed and a lot of people who are close to Octavia and in those circles approved of the decision because she wanted to reflect the period that she was in. That shifted other aspects of Dana and Kevin's life and relationship. People don't get married as young.
And I think for Branden, that created a kind of like, an excitement about okay, how do we modernize this and keep it fresh?
On the show, Dana and Kevin are just getting to know each other as the time traveling begins. What was it like to develop that chemistry with Mallori as Dana?
We have to believe that they would go on this journey together, right? If you look at them from an outside perspective, you have to wonder why the hell he'd hang around. It's that undeniable pull that we feel a few times in our lives towards a person or a thing. Kevin feels that for Dana. That's why he goes back to the hospital in episode 4. He hasn't prepared to go back in time, but he knows he needs to be around her.
The first episode was like a two-week first friend date for Mallori and I. We were able to get to know each other and build a connection shooting that episode because it's such a precursor to the rest of the season. The truth is, Dana and Kevin are both outsiders. When they meet, each has a lot of outsider-ness and they reach out from the thick smog and grab hold of each other.
Richard Ducree/FX Mallori Johnson as Dana, Micah Stock as Kevin Franklin
Kevin spends a lot of time with Thomas Weylin in the past. Can you share some memories of filming scenes with Ryan Kwanten?
Ryan's a deeply devoted actor, so in terms of filming with him, it was exciting because I knew I had a scene partner who had done their homework. I love doing those scenes with him on a creative level. From a story perspective, it was complicated and that was one of the reasons I was attracted to [this project.]
I think a lot of us would like to think that we go back in the past and stand true to our values and morals; we'd tell people what we think and what's wrong with them. It's just not realistic because their survival, especially Dana's, depends on Kevin ingratiating himself with these people who are products of their time. It's also dangerous because there are times when Kevin forgets how awful they are. He develops these relationships with them and even starts to feel for Margaret [Gayle Rankin] as a woman in an abusive relationship, which Dana calls him out for. There were little moments where he almost forgot that they were the people they were.
In the past, Kevin has a hard time with a lot of what he's seeing and many of the conversations he has with folks in the past. Can you talk to me about the trajectory of Kevin's journey in the past?
It was important to me, and I think to the wider cast, that even though our show features time travel, this unreal thing, that we treat it as realistically as possible. When we went back, Kevin didn't think it's real at first. He thinks it's some sort of like old acid and he's tripping. He can't conceive it at first, but in many ways it's reflective of the differences white and Black people encounter in dangerous situations. Kevin has the privilege to respond slowly. Dana gets back and immediately goes into survival mode because Black people experience that danger on a daily basis in modern society. Perhaps not as much as in 1815, but certainly more than white people do. It was important for me to track the slowness of him figuring out the situation. By episode 5, he recognizes what the game is and becomes an active participant in both protecting Dana and trying to elicit change in this world as much as possible.
Part of the story is Kevin is insulated from a lot of the worst things that happen on the plantation because of his whiteness. He hears people say awful things and sees the enslaved people around the plantation, but he is protected from the most brutal abuses they experience. That shifts later in the season when he learns Tom [Kwanten] has been raping women on the plantation and impregnating them. That's when Kevin goes from, 'I have to maintain the framework to protect him and Dana,' to not being able to ignore it anymore. It was really important for Branden to show those differences in what Kevin's life looks like on the plantation versus Dana's.
Kevin struggles with addiction, and being in the past becomes a stressor that he does not share with Dana. Did you speak with Branden about what that would add to Kevin's story?
We talked about how we would track that because we didn't want the whole season to be about whether or not he would fall off the wagon. It was important for him to weave it in a more subtle way. In talking to friends and others struggling with addiction who were living sober lives and experienced relapses, they share that relapses often happen when you think you're totally fine, then suddenly you're at dinner, have a glass of wine and you didn't even realize. Kevin isn't necessarily struggling not to drink for most of the season. He's just going through this awful experience. In that moment when he's in the tavern with Tom and he gets pushed, it's sort of down the hatch and process at a later time sort of thing.
In terms of adding that element to the story, that was a helpful catalyst for realizing Kevin might not make it through this situation. It's another element of his personality that makes it feel like Kevin is a great guy, but he might fuck this up.
The season ends with Kevin in the past. From your perspective, how do you think this version of Kevin will cope with being stuck in the past alone?
People who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic situations tend to adapt to them, and I think Kevin is probably no different from that. He will try to maintain himself and some semblance of self as much as possible. We saw what happened to Olivia after spending the years in the past as a modern woman. Kevin has a long road to figuring out what kind of man he's going to be. We don't know what he will encounter, but I hope we get to see it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Kindred season 1 is currently available to stream on Hulu.
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