Interview: Black Bird Showrunner Dennis Lehane Talks Drama Series, Casting Paul Walter Hauser, Creative Liberties, More
Based on a true story, Apple TV's latest crime drama Black Bird follows high school football hero and policeman’s son Jimmy Keene [Taron Egerton] and his sentencing of 10 years in a minimum security prison due to drug trafficking charges. While in prison he is given a life-altering choice: transfer to a maximum-security prison and get into the mind of suspected serial killer Larry Hall [Paul Walter Hauser] to get an early release or serve his full sentence with no opportunity for parole.
Game Rant spoke with showrunner Dennis Lehane—best known for his work on Shutter Island, The Wire, andThe Outsider—about creatingBlack Bird. We chatted about how his experience as a filmmaker and a novelist drew him to the story, the creative liberties he took during production, casting Hauser as the real-life serial killer Larry Hall, and filming the very destructive riot scene.
Related: Black Bird Review
Game Rant: You have this great experience as a filmmaker and a novelist. What drew you to this particular story?
Dennis Lehane: This might sound strange, but I've been looking to tell a story that has a clean mythological line, and this was it. If you look at it, it has all the trappings of a classical hero's journey: you have this young man, he is sent out by his village to confront an ogre that is threatening members of the village, he heads out into a dark forest and battles the monster, and he comes back a changed man. It's as old as time.
GR: What are some of the creative liberties you took while adapting this true crime story?
Lehane: Jimmy Keane’s journey against Larry did take these factual steps. His dance with Larry was very similar to this. Where I changed it was I wanted to give him a confrontation with his self that doesn't
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