Brian Tyree Henry confessed to breaking his own cardinal rule of not returning to television in order to star in Apple TV+’s crime drama Dope Thief. The Atlanta breakout star was initially reluctant to return to the small screen after a slew of theatrical releases that include The Eternals, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Fire Inside. Reflecting on his last acting roles in Atlanta and Class of ‘09, Henry said, “There seems to be this trend where people love putting me through trauma. You know what I mean? I’m either being shot at in a bulletproof vest, crying, all this stuff. I’m like, why can’t I just own a sandwich shop and be in love?”
Executive produced by Henry, Ridley Scott and showrunner Peter Craig, Dope Thief, based on Dennis Tafoya’s book of the same name, follows two long-time friends Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) who pose as DEA agents to steal drugs from prominent dealers. Their righteous scores soon turn dangerous when the pair end up robbing the wrong house to one of the biggest and secretive narcotics operations on the East coast.
“So, I read this [script] and I couldn’t stop reading it,” Henry continued explaining about why he agreed to the role after initially turning it down. “Then I heard they were willing to let me executive produce as well, and I couldn’t turn that down. But the character of Ray, I couldn’t deny him. There were so many parts of Ray that reflected me, which I try to do with all the characters [that I chose]. Ray came at a point in my life where I was really doing some deep healing, and I saw Ray was just trying so hard to figure out what his trauma was, what his grief was, and also there was just a huge heart to him. So, I couldn’t deny it. Then when I met Pete, it was like, ‘Well, shit’. It was an easy choice to make.”
Craig revealed that he came across the gripping drama via an Apple TV+ executive who just happened to have the novel in their possession. Just as the COVID era was happening Craig toyed with the idea of turning it into a show. “I said, ‘I think I can pop this as an inciting incident and then just take these characters as far as we want,’” Craig said. “Then I was just playing with it over COVID, and not knowing whether the show was going to go or not. Just kind of using that almost like worry beads. I know the intro says it’s a dark show, but it’s actually not. It’s actually almost a kind of absurdist comedy in some places. So then when Ridley came aboard, all of a sudden we had a show.”
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In describing working together with his co-worker Moura, as they play into nuances and tensions in their interracial friendship pairing, Henry said, “He’s just one of the best humans, not just one of the best actors, that I’ve ever met. We would have discussions. We were like, ‘Well, we know what this looks like, a Black and Latino man [involved in] drugs and violence. We’ve seen this shit. So, how is this different?’ What we realized is that Pete had conjured up deep down. It’s a love story between these two men who have been incarcerated since they were 15, put in a system that told them they can’t be anything and released into the world still trying to figure out what kind of men they want to be. They just decide to pretend to be DEA agents and rob trap houses. It was like, OK, well let’s just see where this love story goes and just watch that relationship unfold. It’s something we hadn’t seen a lot.”
Craig added, “They’re actually good hearted people. I mean, they actually have more morality than anybody around them, including most of the law enforcement and most of everybody else. They just have been thrown into a system where morality gets in the way.”
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Alongside being an EP for the series, Scott somehow found the time between Napoleon and production of Gladiator II to direct the first episode. “It was like having that dad who has two secret families, and you only see him for that one holiday,” Henry joked about working with the director on set. “He’s a walking masterclass, especially for an actor because he films with no less than six cameras. He’s not a man of many takes, which I wouldn’t be either if I had six cameras, but I loved it because it felt very much like theater. Because when you’re doing the stage, the curtain comes up and that’s it. There’s no, ‘Hold on, let me stop. Let me go back.’ He brought that kind of energy. It was also really great to know that you’re working with the director that you’re never going to see because [Ridley] directs from a hidden trailer somewhere on the street. He’s in a trailer moving like Minority Report.”
Henry also mentioned that Scott had a great response for him after being enthralled by a take that Henry had done on set. “[Ridley] called me in [his office] and we have this conversation, and he just says to me, ‘Brian, I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and all I’m looking for are actors who make me go, I’ve never thought of it that way.’ That was wonderful. That to me gave me my charge of what I needed to do and [reinforced] that we picked each other at the right time. It was wonderful to hear that from him, it was really wonderful to have him on this.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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