Cast of “Judas and the Black Messiah” discuss behind-the-scenes moments and more during a virtual college roundtable

LaKEITH STANFIELD as William O’Neal and DANIEL KALUUYA as Chairman Fred Hampton in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (© 2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved, photo by Glen Wilson)

“People say Black films don’t make money. Well, I’ll just do Black films then and you’ll see.”

That is what Daniel Kaluuya, the “Get Out” and “Black Panther” star, said on how he navigates his career and takes roles that speak to him. It’s not an uncommon fact that a lot of Black history has been swept under the rug, meaning their stories aren’t often heard in the movie industry. With the release of Shaka King’s historical drama film “Judas and the Black Messiah,” the cast hopes that more stories like this can be heard and applied to real life. 

The film follows the life of Fred Hampton (played by Kaluuya), the chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and William O’Neal (played by co-star LaKeith Stanfield), the undercover FBI informant in the late 1960s. Although it’s centered around the inner workings of O’Neal’s betrayal, it also gives insight into what Hampton’s personal life was like as well as the work the Black Panther party did. 

Ahead of the film’s release, Warner Brothers conducted a virtual college roundtable with the cast of “Judas and the Black Messiah.” 

As Kaluuya prepared for his role as the dignified leader of the Black Panther Party, he wanted to get into the mindset of Fred Hampton. To do this, he listened to a lot of speeches by Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He would listen to four of the speeches Hampton listened to every morning to focus on his character.

After listening to them a couple of times, it really started to resonate with him and he could feel the inspirational message that was being implied to him. 

“The clarity of thought I really took with listening to the Malcolm X and Martin Luther King speeches, the way they would present an idea -- they were storytellers,” Kaluuya said. “You have imagery, you have feelings. The more you hear the story, the more you layer the picture.”

Although Kaluuya had a lot of source material to work with, Stanfield on the other hand pointed out that he did not. Playing the role of O’Neal was tough because he had to fill in the gaps but also had to be careful not to fill his character with too much imagination. Despite that challenge, Stanfield portrayed O’Neal as a complex man who was under a lot of pressure. 

As much as people would love to be a selfless leader like Hampton was, Stanfield pointed out that O’Neal is much more relatable now and back then. To him, O’Neal represents what capitalism is and how selfish people can be. 

“Most people just want to survive,” Stanfield said. “Fred Hampton was a unique individual who put people in his life before himself. Most people aren’t like that.” 

In addition to highlighting O’Neal’s life, the film also dives deep into who Hampton’s partner, Deborah Thompson, was. Dominique Fishback, a spoken word poet and writer, took on the role of Thompson or as the cast calls her, Mama Akua. Since her character was also a poet in the film, Fishback wrote a poem for the movie which she acts out. 

Fishback noted that the film changed her in a lot of ways, whether that was in how she wrote her poetry or how to better improve herself. While filming, she said that the cast became the Panthers and was always together, which was essential to the story to feel realistic as possible. 

“As a cast and crew, we wanted the story to flow naturally through us,” said Fishback. “When you open yourself up to something like that, I don’t know how you can’t be changed or influenced.”

Their bond became so close one day that she had an “out of body experience.” One day when the cast was bowling, a white boy came up to her and took a fry without asking. Her fellow castmates stood up for her and she was surprised because back in Brooklyn, N.Y. where she’s from, she’s used to advocating for herself. 

“To see that happen so naturally, I said ‘oh, this is what it must feel like: I am safe here,’” Fishback explained. “It allowed me to navigate that world and the character differently so when I came back home, I could not be any other way. I learned unconditional love and trust with people in a way.” 

Some of the cast that played some of the other Black Panthers (such as Algee Smith, Dominique Thorne, and Darrell Britt Gibson) had to handle shootout scenes. Algee Smith, who plays Jake Winters, said that it was fun to do, especially since it was his first time doing a shootout on set. 

“Knowing how to break down a gun from the 60s is a different thing and knowing how to take it apart and put it back together is a different thing,” Smith explained. 

Although it was fun to do, it was still an emotional scene that he had to be very technical about. He had to make sure that he captured his character perfectly because Winters was a “craftsman” when it came to guns. 

This film is coming out during a time where our country has been divided by protests and also during Black History Month. The cast made several points that Hampton’s story has had a lot of parallels when it came to the events of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Darrell Britt-Gibson, who played Bobby Rush, emphasized that there is only America and that’s the America where Black and brown people aren’t treated fairly. 

“We have to get away from this idea that there are two Americas because it allows people to hide behind the idea that ‘I’m with the good people,’” said Britt-Gibson. “We all exist in the same world. We all need to sit down and look in the mirror and say ‘what are we doing wrong and how can we change it?’” 

“Judas and the Black Messiah” is currently available to stream on HBO Max and will premiere in theaters on Friday, February 12th.