In Black Bird, a crime drama revolving around a high-school hero-turned drug dealer who is tasked with getting a confession out of a possible serial killer, Taron Egerton plays Jimmy Keene. Once convicted, the character takes the tricky deal in exchange for waiving his sentence. Jimmy is certainly a stark departure from the actor's last role based on a real person - pop legend Elton John in Rocketman. The 2019 film saw him rocking bold colourful costumes as he took to the reel stage. His latest stint couldn't be more different from the biopic, the more pulpy Kingsman films he's best known for or Wolverine, the Marvel character that fans want him to play. But the result of the Egerton switching gears to lean into a darker story makes for a wholly riveting watch.When Taron Egerton's Jimmy Keene is imprisoned and tricked into taking a ten-year sentence instead of five years, he gets entangled in solving multiple murders and assaults committed by suspected serial killer Larry Hall (played by Paul Hauser). Created by Dennis Lehane with Egerton also on board as executive producer, the show opens up a tense psychological drama. In an exclusive interview with Filmfare ahead of the show's release, the actor opened up about his fascination with the role and the incredibly hard process of getting out of character.
Jimmy Keene is such a complex character. What made you pick this particular role after Rocketman?
Well, he's just such an interesting character. I was offered this role and signed on in the summer of 2020. It was a year after Rocketman had come out and that had been such a great thing in my life - playing Elton John. And I was scared I think because I felt like although I had great opportunities in my 20s with cool roles and films, I'd been waiting for the role like the one in Rocketman where I really felt I could just sort of expand into it and really strut my stuff I suppose. But then when you're done you go, "Oh, what do I do now?" and it was a full year after Rocketman came out that I was asked about this project and I was so excited because it was such an interesting part. I felt that in its way, to me it was every bit as interesting as Elton but in a very different way. And so I signed on without hesitation. In terms of what I find most interesting about him, he's challenging, he's a problematic flawed man and in some ways, he's not a man, he's a boy at the start of the story who thinks he's the biggest man in the world. And part of the story of Black Bird is Jimmy learning some humility and I also love that journey he goes on. Any arc I've played as an actor has been a good arc. This one is the one that is the most uncomfortable. He's forced to learn humility. I don't think he sets out to better himself. It kind of happens to him.
The show has quite a dark subject. As an actor, how difficult is it to get into this character and also to come out of it?
I have historically felt a bit like when actors say it's hard to get out of character - I don't always know if I believe it. It's something that makes people just sound good. And I still don't feel it's hard to come out of character but I have felt on this job that there were days when I went home just feeling shit because it's not nice. There are certain bits of heightened emotion in this job where at the end of it I just found it hard to come down. My character does something in the third episode which is really out of nowhere and quite ugly and unexpected. We shot it late at night and it's in the TV room in the prison in episode 3 and we shot it on a Friday and I felt really weird after it for quite a few hours. I really couldn't…I was sort of enraged and I was enraged about something that hadn't happened to me. It had happened to this character that I was playing. I've never really had that before. It was a new experience for me. It just goes to show you're not always right when you're making assumptions about why people say things. I think it was even harder for Paul [Hauser] because in some ways I'm just a witness of something very very dark whereas Paul has to really get to grips with it and that's hard. It's not pleasant at all. And there were moments while filming it where we had to stop and just take a second because it's just a lot. It isn't Four Weddings and a Funeral, you know? Hahaha.
You also served as executive producer on the show so was there something that you really wanted in the series or are there any changes that you made?
I mainly just thought it was amazing and I wanted everyone to think that I was the reason it was amazing if I'm completely honest haha. But, no I did not change things, of course not. Dennis (Lehane), the showrunner and writer had it all figured out. But, I was very interested as much in being an active producer. I wanted to learn about what happens on the other side of things because although I'm exposed to a lot of it as an actor working in films, I'm not really a part of it. Being a producer on something means that you become privy to conversations that you wouldn't ordinarily be privy to and that's been a privilege and I'm really grateful to everyone on the show for letting me do it. It meant that I learnt about the mechanics of production and the creative process of something going from inception to realisation. And that's not something you normally get as an actor. So it was that element that was really exciting for me.
Black Bird is currently streaming.
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