Thursday, March 28, 2024

Lyriq Bent Dishes on WGN’s New Crime Series ‘Shoot the Messenger’ [EUR Exclusive]

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Shoot the Messenger WGN
Lyriq Bent and Elyse Levesque “Shoot the Messenger”

*WGN’s one-hour political-crime thriller “Shoot the Messenger” premieres Monday, February 26, and centers on the complex relationships between the media, the police, and politics, which of course strikes an extremely timely chord today – both with other TV/film projects and current events!

The show follows Daisy Channing (Elyse Levesque, “Orphan Black,” “Stargate Universe”), a young reporter trying to balance a messy personal life with a burgeoning career. Things go sideways when Daisy tracks a story about a gang-related murder, only to discover an interconnected web of criminal activity that reaches into the corridors of corporate and political power. It’s the kind of story that makes careers and destroys lives, including those of her own family. With help from her editor Mary Foster (Alex Kingston, “Doctor Who”), co-worker Simon Olenski (Lucas Bryant, “Haven”), and lead homicide detective Kevin Lutz, played by Lyriq Bent, (“She’s Gotta Have It,” “Saw”, “The Book of Negroes”), Daisy uncovers a cover-up so scandalous it could bring down the government

Having played a handful of cop roles on TV, Bent, star of Tyler Perry’s upcoming film “Acrimony,” tells EUR/Electronic Urban Report that the timeliness of the series is what compelled him to tackle yet another detective role, but Kevin Lutz, he says, “Is like no other cop that I have played before.”

“I was just coming off of five years playing a cop. It becomes a little mundane. And then leaving that show I did “Book of Negroes” which really opened the floodgates of creativity and storytelling. So I was on that high when this project came around.”

And when series creators Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland “showed me the storyline, I was like….this could be fun, and it was,” Bent added.

Peep the rest of our Q&A with Lyriq Bent below.

OTHER NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: ‘Get Out’ Inspired College Course About Racism Now Available Online

Shoot the Messenger WGN

What kind of research is involved to play a detective investigating murder and corruption that leads all the way up to the highest powers in government?

Lyriq: I’ve been fortunate that I’ve played a lot of detectives in the past few years. So I was comfortable in that area. Also, because of the great job and research that the creators, Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland, have done in writing a great script, it made that part easy as well. And also I spoke to several detectives, just to get their personal feel and flavor of what it was like on the job and the type of relationships that they’ve developed over the years and the intricacies of those relationships and how credible is it to have those types of relationships between police officers and reporters and the officials of government. So it was combinations of everything that really brought that world to life for me.

What do you most enjoy about exploring the world of Detective Lutz?

Lyriq: The dynamics of the interaction of the different world’s colliding. Dealing with the reporter, Daisy Channing, and developing a love interest with her was different. And then dealing with the political aspects of society and understanding that cops don’t just show up and everything is cookie-cutter. There are issues that they’ll want to deal with but they can’t because of political issues and that was intriguing to me. It felt real and natural and raw. I thought it was important to tell that story so that people watching can get a better sense of their own communities and how your community is structured, and these are the types of people who work within your community and these are the situations and dilemmas that they’ve got to deal with. Shoot the Messenger is so timely with what’s happening right now in the media. Hopefully, it will give you a better glimpse of information and how you receive information and how honest is that information. You hear a lot of political people talk about “fake news,” and what is fake and whats real. So I think it’s very timely and it’s going to be an eye-opener for the viewers because it’s going to be very relatable on so many different levels.

Shoot the Messenger WGN

Does the series play on any social fears we have as a society about politics, the government… conspiracy theories?

Lyriq: I think the social fears we have is lack of trust. Because we don’t know if we can trust the information that we’re getting. I think that’s the biggest issue we have, socially, when it comes to information. We can’t believe everything we hear or what we read, so we’re skeptical on what we’re supposed to read. We’re skeptical on the sources. We are very heavily socially media-involved in the show and so that aspect, again, is going to be relatable with the Millennials and with the dot.com era and stuff like that. But socially I think our biggest fear is not knowing if we can trust the information we read. So we shine light on how information is gathered and how information is sent out and you’ll see the complications of that and the nuances of that. You’ll get a sense of the politics that’s played that makes up different communities and why certain communities are they way they are. Because of our ignorance, we think, “Oh, just go do this, that and the other,” because that’s what you would do in your own community not realizing that not every community has the same opportunities. So we shine light on that to give you a better sense of why certain communities are the way they are. And then that would hopefully make you reflect on your ignorance and say “Wow, I thought it was this, that and the other.”

Another area that socially we falter is that we have this great sense of belonging and social media makes that monster even bigger because you can hide behind closed doors and have a voice and then outside of that closed-door and social media platform there are a lot of wounded individuals. I think a show like this will open your eyes to the types of personalities that are out there, not everybody who looks something up on a message board is as confident as you reading it. There are a lot of wounded people with a cloak of confidence walking around that’s not real. I think we touch on all those elements on the show and at least be mindful of all these different areas that we make up socially.

Has playing these various cop roles throughout your career influenced how you manage your personal life?

Lyriq: I really don’t know that honestly. Personally, I just go through life with a certain knowledge of human behavior, and I think I look at my life through that lens of how the majority behaves. I try to measure myself as to the majority and find out if I’m of the same mind and how I think about things and how I decipher things and then go about it the way I understand things, which isn’t always popular. I don’t know if that has anything to do with people of discipline, like officers. I try not to put Lyriq Bent into a character and I’ve had acting coaches who tell me I should because I’m this, that or the other and I don’t look at myself the way other people look at me. In my headspace, my gray matter tells me that my life is not as exciting as one might think it is so when I see a character on paper, it has to be exciting on paper so it could be enjoyable by the masses. I find myself in a different headspace where my gray matter is looking at something that I don’t necessarily see or understand for myself. So I don’t know how much of my characters I apply to my real world because I don’t think I put too much of my real-world into my character.

But how much of these characters stay with you after the project wraps?

Lyriq: In terms of staying with me, it’s knowledge of circumstances. I tend to gravitate to movies or shows that reflect the real world — real world issues and not just fantasy or fairy tale or soap opera-type shows. I like real matters and issues that has to be researched and then brought to the surface. Different characters open up different doors of knowledge that I say, “Oh wow. I didn’t know that’s what things were like for a Navy SEAL or a sergeant.” So I will then do some more in-depth research on my own if it intrigues me. Like for instance “Book of Negroes.” That is history. It’s based off a true ledger called “The Book of Negroes” that I didn’t know about. So that was interesting and that made me investigate more and realize that “Wow.. this is real.” Seeing the actual ledger in the Smithsonian…. things like that are intriguing and these things tend to stay with you and you then speak from a totally different point of view because you now have some sort of historical weight behind you. And that’s the same things with modern-day information. When you talk about something that you’ve done the homework on, and you know it’s true, you don’t have just anyone telling you how it is when you have a better idea and understanding of just how it is. So, these things do tend to stay with you if you’re intrigued by it especially.

Daisy and Kevin are lovers who have to work together on this murder case. Without getting too spoilery, how would you describe their dynamic? Just how messy does it between these two?

Lyriq: It’s a rabbit hole. They go down a rabbit hole of deceit and confusion and just mess. It’s always fun to go down a different path until you realize that it’s no longer fun. So it’s pretty complex. It’s a tangled one because there are more than a couple of people involved. And so you then, as a viewer, start to become a fan of certain people and not of others. It’s a complex relationship that Kevin and Daisy had and people are going to be able to relate to it because it’s in the workplace, even though they don’t work together, they kinda work together and it shows how quickly the emotions can get in the way of professionalism and how to deal with that. It’s not always easy. Hard decisions have to be made and sometimes it’s not in favor of neither party, and you gotta deal with that at the end of the day behind closed doors, or do you? It also lets you reflect on yourself as an actor. You reflect on yourself and how do you deal with these situations, if it were you. I thought that was interesting when I found myself asking myself that when I was on set shooting these things and that doesn’t happen a lot. So when that happens it’s always fun because you find yourself being dragged into it personally when you really don’t want to do that with a character.

I read an article recently about how interracial couples were affected by “Get Out.” Do you think this series will also allow IR couples to examine on their relationships?

Lyriq: Well, yeah. If it doesn’t do that then we failed at our jobs. Everything that I tend to do in the industry I try to provoke emotions — emotions of self and other people. I try to do things that reflect the real world so that people can take notice to maybe their own issues or issues of other people and being somewhat sympathetic. You still have people who have issues with interracial relationships and we’ll continue to have people with issues with that until they are no longer. So let’s address things that are still relevant and not pretend that it’s not still an issue for some people. We just want to make sure that it’s not the majority. So we gotta embrace our truth and that’s what we try to do with this show, be truthful and honest because it is very timely with today’s social environment. We don’t want to come out with false information or false subject matters. There’s going to be some people who love it because they see themselves in these situations and how it’s dealt with, and you’re going to have some people who are against it simply because they’re against it. And they probably don’t have a real reason for it other than the fact that it’s two different culture. So you just want people to take a look in the mirror and see if they like what they look at and if not, give them an opportunity to see other ways of looking at things.

“Shoot the Messenger” premieres Feb 26 at 10/9c on WGN America.

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