In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast, co-host Mike DeAngelo dives into Apple TV+’s “Black Bird,” which stars Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser, Greg Kinnear, Ray Liotta, Sepideh Moafi, and more. The gripping series, based on a true story, follows Jimmy Keene, an imprisoned midwestern drug dealer who agrees to enter a maximum-security prison to befriend a serial killer, Larry Hall (Hauser), and elicit a confession for the FBI, effectively ruining Larry’s chance for appeal. It’s a wild ride that’s at times deeply disturbing, with outstanding ensemble performances to guide it through to its engrossing conclusion.
The creator of the series, Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Wire,” “Boardwalk Empire”), stopped by the Bingeworthy podcast to discuss his long, illustrious career as a novelist, TV writer, and now showrunner for “Black Bird,” which he was drawn to for different reasons than some might think. You’d think it was an adaption of one of his famous novels. Nope, it’s based on the autobiographical novel “Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption” by Keene and Hillel Levin. But even the gritty crime elements to it and the juiciness of its wild true-story realities weren’t the main impetus for the writer.
“If you look at this story, there are 3-4 major male parts. And, of them, for me, you have every worthwhile picture of masculinity.” Lehane said. “The one that I would want to be is Miller, played by Greg Kinnear. He’s methodical, he’s rational, and he doesn’t let a narrative take hold until he’s followed the facts to their natural & rational end. And then you have this loving bear of a disaster in Ray Liotta playing Big Jim. He’s loving, he’s a screw-up, but he’d run into a fire for his son without a look back. And then you have, at the far end, the worst example of toxic masculinity — a serial killer who preys on women he doesn’t know. Where’s Jimmy in all of this? Jimmy’s our every man. He’s us. He’s our guide in. So, that was the story I wanted to tell.”
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The show features a stand-out performance from Paul Walter Hauser as the child-like serial killer Larry Hall, whose discomforting and uncharacteristically high voice was something they had to dial in as a team.
“Paul actually found, I think, four minutes of video of Larry talking,” Lehane said. “And that’s how he got that register in his voice. Larry actually talks higher than Paul talks in the show, but I was like, ‘Paul, we’ve got to dial it down a little…” We really had a composition to how his voice would go. It’s at its highest pitch when he’s most insecure in the middle of the show. It begins in a low register when he’s out, and he’s free. And it begins to lower again when he starts getting confidence.”
The first two episodes of “Black Bird” are now available to stream on Apple TV+. You can listen to the entire podcast below:
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