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.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More