Aaron: TIFF is where Brother premiered, which was directed by Clement Virgo. Shout out to Clement Virgo. In addition to that, Lanterns on HBO is about to come out, in which I have the great privilege of portraying John Stewart, Green Lantern, and I’ll be appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego ahead of the world premiere in LA. I also just completed filming on Star Wars: Starfighter with Shawn Levy. Shout out Shawn. Ryan Gosling is leading that film, who is also a producer on Love of Your Life. That was a cool connection Ryan and I had. I’ll also be appearing in Superman: Man of Tomorrow as well. So I’ve been busy, brother.
Barry: There are so many different films in there. It’s dope to hear you shout out Brother, which is one of the films in your filmography that stands apart, working with the great Clement Virgo and Lamar [Johnson], who I almost, almost worked with once. Talk briefly about the experience of making that piece. That was pre-Rebel Ridge, after The Underground Railroad. It was in that little sweet spot.
Aaron: Exactly right. Clement and I connected while we were both in California, and he let me know that he had this script he had adapted from the novel by David Chariandy – a beautiful novel. It was one of those films where everybody involved was doing it solely for the love of the film and for the love of the novel. What a joy it is to collaborate with a director, a filmmaker, who trusts their judgement, and trusts that you can achieve what the script requires. Just as you did, you made the decision to cast me, and you trusted your decision. Clement and I developed a real rapport on set where… As you know, when I need to hit continuity, I hit continuity damn near perfect because I’m mildly OCD, but when I am not required to hit continuity…
Barry: I do know this. [both laugh]
Aaron: When I’m not required to hit that continuity, anything can happen. There were times where I would say to Clement, “I’m going to go back there. I just need you to give me the nod and make sure that your guys are with me. The DP is with me. Because maybe my original path was to stay on the sidewalk and walk into the barber shop, but because my character’s just been under enormous physical duress, I might stumble into the road. I might try and walk back home and have my brother change me back in the direction of the barber shop. I was like, “Just have them roll with me.” We would do that a lot. Not every day, because not every day do you have the luxury of time. But on the days where we had it, we would do that. What a joy it was to be trusted enough to be guided by your instincts in a way that didn’t have a time restriction, so long as they didn’t derail the narrative of the story.
Barry: It’s a beautiful picture. You don’t always feel the energy in a movie, but that’s a movie where you can feel that energy of the making – the ethos. I give this quote sometimes where I talk about how Moonlight is so fortunate because I have friends who’ve made things that are just as worthy as this film, just as beautiful, but they somehow don’t catch the same zeitgeist. It has nothing to do with the film, it’s just a matter of timing, happenstance, all these different things. So I really wanted to give you a chance to spotlight that film. It’s interesting, because I imagine right now the scale of projects can be anything that you desire. I’m sure that the roles you’re being offered have changed.