*TV One is taking on the action genre with the original film “Down For Whatever,” which chronicles a young successful doctor, Tracy (LeToya Luckett), and her police detective husband, Mike (Hosea Chanchez). Although happily married, one thing has always been missing from their relationship – a sense of family.
“Tracy pulled on my heartstrings because I know a lot of people are going to be able to relate to her story,” said Luckett during a recent media teleconference. Tracy is the “girl that’s succeeding in almost every area of her life,” she added, “but the one thing that’s missing from her is not knowing her biological family. One of the biggest things with me is family so I can’t imagine a person going through that. The hoops that this young lady jumps through to finally link up with family is beyond me.”
The former Destiny’s Child singer and two-time Grammy Award-winner said reading the script took her on a “roller coaster ride” of emotions.
“After seeing the project and how everything turned out, I think people will be really moved by it,” she said.
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“Down For Whatever” is the 2017 American Black Film Festival (ABFF) winning screenplay, written and directed by Tim Folsome and produced for TV One by Eric Tomosunas, Keith Neal, James Seppelfrick and Darien Baldwin for Swirl Films.
Luckett believes viewers will find the story “relatable” and revealed that she “learned so much” from Tracy and “had so compassion for this character because I know nothing about being in that space, of not knowing a love like (family).”
“LeToya is a very colorful person but as far as Tracy, with her not knowing her biological family and her background, she didn’t know which colors to use,” Luckett explains. “She had to find her own way just through living her life, instead of seeing her mom and her dad together and saying, ‘Okay, that’s what love looks like.’ Or seeing her siblings and all these people around her. We kinda pick our colors based off of that and she didn’t have that. I think she found her colors along the way and I think once she linked back up with her sisters, things start to make sense.”
According to the official synopsis: Tracy grew up in foster care and longs for the traditional family environment that she never had. When her Mike suddenly loses his partner in a senseless cop-killing, Tracy is there to support him. That is, until she receives an unexpected visit from a social worker who informs her that the ruthless killers suspected in the murder are her biological sisters, Denise (Bre-Z) and Sonya (Imani Hakim). Tracy is overwhelmed and in disbelief by the news, but before telling her husband, she decides to track her sisters down herself. Will she make it to them before the cops do?
“I think a lot of us can relate to her when you’re on a mission to find what you think the missing piece is. You’ll go outside of your comfort zone to accomplish that goal. So I found myself thinking about certain situations in my life when I said ‘Forget it! I don’t care what happens. I’m gon’ go for it,’” said Luckett, noting the ways in which she also found the role transformative.
“I have more compassion for people going through not knowing who their biological families are. It was hard not to judge (Hosea’s) character, especially in today’s time with what’s going on with police officers. But there was a compassion for him and any officer going through losing a partner who was like family,” she said.
“There’s such a realness to this film and I think the bottom line for me was unconditional love. The unconditional love that Tracy has for her sisters even after finding out everything they had been through and everything they had done; with Tracy’s husband having to understand this need to fill this void in her life. Everything centers on love with no limits. By the end of this film, I found myself crying — even though I knew what was going to happen — because I got to understand every single one of these characters and I had compassion for them and I had empathy for them and love for them.”
“Down For Whatever” premieres Sunday, July 22 at 8/7C on TV One.
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