By Michael Lennox
LOS ANGELES (AP) --"Snowfall" co-executive producer and co-creator John Singleton was in the hearts and minds of cast members who gathered Monday on the red carpet for the premiere of the third season of the FX crime drama.
Singleton, 51, died in late April following a stroke while the new season was still in production. Actress Angela Lewis said Singleton was a constant presence on the set, helping pick the cast and crew, and offering advice. She called him "the heart of the show."
Star Damson Idris, who portrays drug dealer Franklin Saint, said Singleton left the series in great shape and in good hands. "The crew is fully diverse," Idris said. "He hand-picked everyone and he empowered people. He left people so many codes and he left us with the confidence to go on."
The drama, set in the 1980s, revolves around the first crack epidemic in Los Angeles.
"Snowfall" was Singleton's "baby," said actor Isaiah John. "He always said that this story has never been told. And he wanted to be the one to tell that story."
Actor Carter Hudson, who portrays an undercover CIA operative, observed there is little time to mourn while shooting a TV series.
"You don't have a choice but to keep going," he explained. "I guess I hope that he's proud of the way we finished it. I hope he's proud of what we can do going forward," Hudson said.
The actors view themselves as survivors who are left to carry on.
"Let's just be real: He's missed already," said actor Amin Joseph. "John would have come out here already, like, 'Come on, y'all! Come on! Let's go. Let's go!'"
The third season of "Snowfall" debuts Wednesday.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More