Tracy McMillan (‘UnPrisoned’ creator) discusses the ‘bigger purpose’ behind new series about a ‘justice-impacted family’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“I think the single most important thing that I wanted to get right was to depict a justice-impacted family accurately,” shares Tracy McMillan about one of her goals in writing the new Hulu series “UnPrisoned.” The show is based in part on her life story, as her father spent much of her life in prison while she grew up in foster homes. The creator, writer, and executive producer adds, “I wanted to tell a story that showed the humanity of the person who had been in prison — the career criminal — and I wanted to show the humanity of the people around them, the people who love them.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
“UnPrisoned” follows Kerry Washington’s Paige as she welcomes her father Edwin (Delroy Lindo) into her newly-purchased home after his 17-year prison sentence. The show chronicles Edwin’s re-entry into society and explores the impact he has on Paige’s life, her son Finn (Faly Rakotohavana), and her relationships. McMillan describes the series as a “sequel” to her 2010 memoir, “I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway,” saying, “The memoir ends, my dad’s still in prison. This is where I imagined what would happen if he got out, when he got out.”
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“I feel like I lucked out on every single level with her,” beams McMillan about series star Kerry Washington. The creator highlights the Emmy-winner’s “talent,” “intelligence,” “beauty,” “kindness,” and “ability to collaborate” as why she is an ideal “number one on the call sheet.” She thinks the show appealed to Washington because “there’s a bigger purpose in the story we’re telling. It’s important to Black people, it’s important to fathers and daughters everywhere, and mothers and sons.”
The series also boasts veteran Lindo in a role based on McMillan’s own father. They were both determined for the actor to “create a character” rather than just try to have him “impersonate” the real-life figure who inspired the part. “Delroy’s an unbelievably gifted actor” and “a genius,” notes the executive producer, adding that what she loves about working on television is “interfacing with these incredibly talented, incredibly smart people who know their thing.”
In the series premiere “Repetition Compulsion,” which McMillan penned, Paige realizes a dream of purchasing her own home. The writer explains why she wanted to kick off the series with this milestone for her protagonist: “When I bought my house and I had a place that no one could make me leave and I didn’t have to ask permission to live there, that was a huge turning point for me,” adding that she “wanted to start the story in a place with the maximum stakes for Paige.”
The first episode also introduces the season-long narrative device of Paige’s seven-year-old self commenting on the events that unfold in each episode. McMillan explains, “The way people act out is because they can’t come to terms with what happened to them as a child… I wanted to show the child and show the relationship with the inner child.” Young Paige is played by the scene-stealing Jordyn McIntosh, and the season finale depicts the younger and older Paiges having a heart-to-heart and embracing. “I wasn’t going to do to her anything that already happened to her,” says the writer about her own inner child, continuing, “Taking really good care of her is taking really good care of myself.”
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