UnPrisoned, a Kerry Washington comedy about a man who gets out of prison and moves in with his daughter, debuts on Hulu March 10. Delroy Lindo plays Edwin, who spends 17 years in prison. Washington portrays Paige, his daughter. Paige is a relationship therapist and single mother of a teen boy.
Washington said the show would not have worked without Lindo. “Delroy is quite literally one of the reasons that I am an actor today,” she said at TCA Press Tour, adding that she read The Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school, saw the Spike Lee movie, and realized the possibilities an actor possesses.
“The magic that he created on screen and the arc of that character just really transformed me and was like a lighthouse in developing my craft throughout my career,” Washington said. “So when we were talking about, like, who could be the dad on this show, I was like, ‘There's one person. There's only one person.’ And they were like, ‘What if he says no?’ And I was like, ‘I don't know. We don't have a show. There's one person.’"
Lindo’s work includes movies Da 5 Bloods, Crooklyn and The Cider House Rules, and TV series The Good Fight.
Washington was also intrigued by the idea of looking at how prison sentences affect families. “We live in the shadow of the prison industrial complex in this country. And when you look at the numbers of people who go through that system, it's so important that we think about these systems and how they impact personal lives, how they impact families,” she said. “And to have the opportunity to take a lens and explore, what are these systems, these racist institutions? How do they impact the everyday lives of families? And can we do that in a way that's fun and loving so that people don't turn away?”
Jordyn McIntosh, Marque Richardson and Faly Rakotohavana are also in the cast.
The show is inspired by creator Tracy McMillan’s life. McMillan said her father was in prison, but did not actually move in with her after he got out. “I actually have two rules: don't ask me for money and you can't live with me. But in TV, I was like, you know, what would it have been like to have that healing of him coming to live with me?” she said. “It's just not something I was going to do in real life.”
McMillan described her father as charming, but prone to bad decisions.
An Onyx Collective show, UnPrisoned is executive produced by McMillan, Yvette Lee Bowser, Washington and Pilar Savone through their Simpson Street production company, and Lindo. Joy Gorman Wettels and Jen Braeden also executive produce.
Bowser is the showrunner.
There are eight episodes.
A Hollywood Reporter review called the show “a messy but fascinating dramedy.”
“UnPrisoned has no interest in sticking to the surface,” it continues. “It wants to dig and dig and dig, all the way down to the kinds of formative childhood traumas that take a lifetime to unpack. The journey isn’t always a pleasant one; the contrast between the series’ bubbly surface and its brittle core can result in a distinctly acrid tang. Yet the same unevenness that makes the series confounding is also what makes it oddly compelling, as it strives in earnest toward the grace that’s so long eluded its heroine.”
Kerry Washington was the star of ABC drama Scandal. She executive produced and starred in the Hulu drama Little Fires Everywhere.
McMillan said her goal in creating the show is “really to shift hearts and minds around people who have been affected by mass incarceration. The families, the people involved, these are human beings like my family members. And I just knew that there was a story there that America was ready to hear.” ■
