Black Panther actor Letitia Wright is heading to the Wild West for the action-packed drama Surrounded, which explores the complex issue of shared trauma. Wright portrays former Buffalo Soldier Moses "Mo" Washington, who must keep an eye on the captured outlaw Tommy Walsh (Jamie Bell) after her stagecoach is attacked by Tommy's men. The surviving passengers search for help while Mo makes sure Tommy doesn't escape; however, the two start to bond during their time together. Directed by Anthony Mandler, the film also stars Jeffrey Donovan and the late Michael K. Williams.
CBR sat down with Wright, Bell, and Mandler and found out more about their experience working on Surrounded. The actors opened up about the relationship between their complicated characters and their respective journeys. Mandler described the process of subverting western tropes in the story, while also treating the film as a character study about trauma and its effects on people.
CBR: The evolution and nature of the relationship between Mo and Tommy is a major part of this story and carries the film. How would you both describe the dynamic between these two characters?
Letitia Wright: Complicated, complex, and multi-layered. It's like putting two people in a room if they were in the street, they would walk in the polar opposite direction of each other. Getting them to stay there for a period of time, to actually investigate one another, is a difficult thing to go through. You see similarities and differences in the person who you probably thought was your enemy -- who you probably believe is your enemy -- having traits just like you. I think their dynamic is really interesting and makes for good cinema. They're not just black and white; it's gray and complex.
Jamie Bell: I [agree with] everything that Letitia just said. I think that's what makes great characters. I figured this out while we were making [Surrounded] -- and I don't think this was necessarily the writer's intention -- but it felt kind of appropriate to add this extra layer of just how people deal with their trauma. Just how people deal with their experiences and what kind of life they're going to lead. Tommy is the way he is presumably because he's seen horrific things. I don't think anyone starts out as a menace or a monster; they become a monster because of their [living] conditions. So, it's the inverse of how people deal with the trauma and what they're [going to] bring with them and if they're going to change.
Tommy is on a nihilistic journey, and he wants to bring people into that journey. With everything that Mo has experienced, it will be so easy for her to go into that place -- to go into that nihilism and burn the world; that kind of mentality. The graciousness of Mo Washington and her spirit is the thing that keeps her going in the right direction -- the direction toward hope and goodness. No matter what you've been through, you can always change that. You're in control, you are the master of your own self. I think that's the journey of the two characters.
Mo's character arc goes from hope to despair to survival and eventually hope again. For you, Letitia, what was the lesson you believe Mo needed to learn the most on her journey here?
Wright: I think you made some great points just now about hope and survival. I can only add to that: The belief in her dreams. The belief that she can have a life that she pictured for herself, and she deserves to exist in a society that won't threaten her dreams, and the willingness to fight for it.
What's interesting about Surrounded is the dialogue sucks you in. When the characters speak, they speak their truth to each other. As a result, it brings about an understanding of these characters and their motivations; therefore, making it harder to identify protagonist and antagonist roles at times. From a director's point-of-view, were you ever concerned that the audience might not know who to root for here?
Anthony Mandler: Okay, you brought up a lot of points. Firstly, the brilliant Andrew Pagana wrote the script, and he has such an incredible sense [for] dialogue. For me, as a filmmaker, I really have been opening up that process to the actors. Letitia, Jamie, and Michael [K. Williams] worked on our dialogue and made sure that there's an honesty and an ownership to it, but Andy being like our leader when it comes to the script.
Let me just say the classic trope of a western is pretty definable [with] who the good guy and bad guy are. Unforgiven is like the ultimate reversal of that where the good guy becomes the bad guy, and the bad guy becomes the good guy. This movie builds off it, making you feel like you're in a western, but it becomes like theater and almost like Waiting for Godot, where two people must explore each other and, in a sense, both change -- either physically or metaphysically -- by their situations and their trauma. They're both held by incredible trauma. In a way, you hate Tommy Walsh. But when you hear his story, and you hear what happened to him, you understand he doesn't know how to deal with it, so he wreaks havoc on the world, and there's something sympathetic about him.
When you hear [Mo's] story, we know and understand the history of the trauma she's gone through; but when you hear the nuance of what she had to do to get to today, you hate the world around her even more for bringing more trauma to her story. And you hate Tommy for bringing his havoc on her situation. But the honesty and the shared experience that they end up having around that campfire, you understand this is a really hard time and people either perish or survive, but no one gets out unscathed, unscarred. I think you see that in every character, and they all have their part in this sort of theater.
I don't know that there's one person to root for. We debated many times should they not have this duel and actually ride off into the sunset together like Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid -- and wreak havoc on the West. We knew, destiny wise, they had to have their moment -- to have that final duel. The mythological moment where truth is brought about who's the better gunman, who's going to continue their journey, and who's going to end here.
Something interesting you brought up is about the consideration of changing the characters' destiny, and this brings me to another scene in the movie that I found was really powerful. The late Michael K. Williams delivers a fantastic performance as the bounty hunter Will, and he speaks a lot of truth to Mo, even as Tommy insists he'll kill them both. While you watched this in action, did you ever think that maybe Mo should align with Will and not consider what Tommy said? Maybe he shouldn't be a bounty hunter at all? Maybe do something different from a storyline perspective.
Well, he was always written as a bounty hunter and was originally written white. Actually, Letitia had the idea to make him African American and how much more complex it would be if out in the middle of nowhere, someone who looked like her father came [along]. Because really what Mo craves is safety, right? There's nothing about her life that was ever safe. Just the big hat, the quietness, the gun hidden, and the say less and be small was about not feeling safe. [Now], here's this man who rides in out of the darkness, who could be a shoulder to lean on, someone to protect her. By casting Michael, and how endearing his eyes and his voice are.
At the end of the day, this is the West. This is a treacherous time. In this movie, in this time, you can't trust anybody. Anybody can turn on anybody. I think there's the complexity of the way Michael played that and the way that [he and Letitia] share that space, when they walk off to the side, and they have that conversation, it's really like father-daughter. You know, behind the scenes, they had a lot in common and they shared their own experiences. They're very similar artists, and they brought their life experience to the moment. Michael played his characters. They were nothing like him as a human, but because of what he had seen in his life, he was able to embody those men.
Surrounded will be released digitally on Tuesday, June 20.