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There Is No One Path for Aaron Pierre, the ‘Rebel Ridge’ Star Who Went from Shakespeare to Mufasa

Aaron Pierre talks to IndieWire about his new film 'Rebel Ridge' while his collaborators including Barry Jenkins ('Mufasa') praise the actor.

In writer/director Jeremy Saulnier ’s taut thriller, which premiered last week, Pierre stars as Terry Richmond, an ex-Marine who arrives in the fictional small town of Shelby Springs to post bail for his cousin — only to become embroiled in a battle against civil forfeiture and a corrupt police force determined to weed him out at any cost. As Black men who turned 30 within weeks of each other this year after dedicating most of their twenties to acting, Pierre and Harrison have found comforting common ground in their personal and professional experiences — a connection that immediately brings to mind the friendship between the late Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. Jenkins loved Pierre’s performance so much that, during the “Underground Railroad” production, he wrote an additional scene in Episode 8, in which protagonist Cora (Thuso Mbedu) goes into the underworld and dances with Caesar, who tragically died on the road to freedom, one last time.

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