'Loving' Clip: Nick Kroll Tackles the Groundbreaking Supreme Court Case
The new drama Loving gracefully depicts the real-life story of the couple whose 1967 Supreme Court case eventually overturned laws against interracial marriage in the United States. The movie stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as Richard and Mildred Loving, the man and woman at the center of this love story. In the new clip above though, we also get a closer look at comedian Nick Kroll taking a rare dramatic role as Bernard Cohen, the inexperienced ACLU lawyer who handled their case.
Related: The ‘Loving’ Cast on the Film Couple’s Perfect Last Name: It Was Fate
The Lovings married in Washington D.C. in 1958. The simple fact of their union led to their arrest and legal banishment from their small hometown in Virginia. After years spent living in the relative safety of D.C., but desperate to return home, Mildred wrote then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who referred their case to the American Civil Liberties Union, which was looking to challenge the Virginia statute. Cohen and Phil Hirschkop (played here by Jon Bass) were the two young lawyers who took up their case. In this scene, the attorneys acknowledge that their clients have secretly moved back to Virginia — and what that could mean for them. “There’s no guarantee we can get them out if they get arrested again,” says Hirschkop.
Loving is playing in select theaters now.
