They had reached the most intimate scene of the limited series, in which Thuso Mbedu’s Cora and Harper’s Royal, the free man who’s just rescued her from captivity, declare their love for one another.
That interaction helped the director “break the ice” before calling action—a fitting bit of levity, given the respite Royal provides The Underground Railroad, both in Colson Whitehead’s 2016 novel and in Jenkins’s 10-part Amazon Prime Video adaptation.
The Underground Railroad came at an opportune time for Harper, who’d just wrapped his Emmy–nominated, four-season run on The Good Place and started landing more film jobs, including the 2019 horror hit Midsommar .
Born a free man in this fictional rendering of mid-1800s America, Royal contrasts sharply with Underground’s protagonist, Cora, who arrives in Indiana—specifically, the independent rural Black community of Valentine—as a runaway with a traumatic past.
“I whispered to Thuso, ‘I want you to say it was able to not only draw in viewers, but draw in Cora, and allow her to slowly bring her guard down,” says Joi McMillon, Jenkins’s longtime editor .
It was a pistol with only five chambers—that was actually correct at the time—and so learn how to shoot and look like I knew what I was doing.” On riding a horse: “Since childhood I’ve been on a horse exactly one time.
Comfort was also the key to Royal and Cora’s courtship, no matter its bittersweet undercurrent.
This brought Harper to a dark place: “I’m not a violent man—if you punch me I turn to dust—but in that moment I was furious and filled with rage.” Jenkins holds a vivid memory of watching his star plumb those depths.
“It’s one take; there’s no cut,” the director says of the scene in which Royal is shot and killed, left still on the ground with his eyes wide open.
Portraits: Gillian Anderson, Hugh Grant, Jurnee Smollett, and More— Are the Daytime Emmy Nominations Even Weirder Than Usual?— Kate Winslet Has Now Entered the Most Thrilling Actress Race at the Emmys— From the Archive: Who Stole the 2000 Oscar Statuettes?— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of Awards Insider.
Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers.