Sterling K. Brown has a mantra for life and it’s so important to him that he often channels it into his characters, including in season two of Paradise.
Post-apocalyptic television has a way of showing the worst of people, but Paradise and Brown’s Xavier Collins shines through with a trust in people that’s all too rare.
“I’m trying to put things out into the world either through my own voice or through the art that I’m a part of, that emphasizes we can win together.”
“I feel like there are so many things to be disappointed, discouraged, angered by, in terms of how people are showing up, how leaders are showing up in the world,” Brown said. “I feel like, to try to love anyway, to try to believe in the best that, regardless of what they’re showing us, that there is better to be excavated from said individuals; I think it’s a wonderful way to try to be, because otherwise you fall into a pit of hopelessness.”
Brown calls it a “zero sum” game if we can’t find reasons to be positive and try to lift each other up. “I don’t want us to be selfish as human beings and feel as if we cannot share. It is not a zero sum world. If some people win, that doesn’t mean that you lose. Everybody can win.”
While the latest season of Paradise has Xavier trying to find his wife, Teri, after leaving the government’s underground bunker in Colorado, there are some bumps along the way. Xavier discovers that the world outside the bunker hasn’t been wiped away after all, but on his way to Atlanta, to find Teri, his plane crashes, dropping him at the feet of Annie, a survivor living inside Graceland, and played by the incredible Shailene Woodley.
“She’s a rock star,” Brown said. “Yeah, Shailene is outstanding. Like, she’s a great person, she’s a great actor. As we were going through episode 4, and we’re getting to the end there, I was just looking into her eyes and seeing what was happening, and I was like, ‘Okay, there’s no acting here. I’m losing my buddy. I’m losing my buddy, and I love my buddy.'”
Season two of Paradise also gave brown and Enuka Okuma, who plays his wife Teri, a few key backstory scenes together, showing how the couple first met. Brown had a lot of wonderful things to say about working with Okuma.
“‘Nuke’ is awesome. I love ‘Nukes’. She is my wife on the show, [and] she knows my wife. It’s always nice when your TV wife knows your real life wife and they get along with each other.”
“[Teri] is a nuanced, beautiful character; smart, funny, fiercely loyal, and I feel like in the [United] States, those sorts of opportunities for Black women can be few and far between. I’m happy that our show is an opportunity to showcase the immense talent that she is,” he said.
One of my favourite moments from the series, however, has to be the Xavier’s story about “life at full volume,” and the moments in life that resonate and stay with you even years later.
“I think it sort of points to the nature of memory and the things that pop out in one’s mind, right?”
“There are moments that I have from my own life–whether it’s a graduation from high school, the passing of my father, marriage to my wife, the birth of my children–there are these moments that… are in full colour, full volume, and you’re like, ‘Oh man, I got a chance to go through that.'”
“Like, that’s a part of my experience and there’s a sense of joy of being like, ‘whatever is happening right now, whether it’s good, bad, or what not, I had these things that were a part of my life and that makes it ultimately great.'”
Paradise season two is streaming now on Hulu on Disney+ in Canada. Watch the full interview with Sterling K. Brown above.
All images courtesy of Disney.
