Director Destin Daniel Cretton Talks Honoring Lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s Work in ‘Just Mercy’

Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan speaks with director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle) about his latest film Just Mercy and honoring lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s real-life commitment to helping the poor, incarcerated, and condemned.

After he graduated from Harvard Law, Bryan Stevenson could have had his pick of law firms to work for. But instead, he decided to devote his skills to helping America’s most vulnerable—those on death row.

It sounds like an impossible story that could only be written for a movie, but it’s based on the real-life experience and book by Stevenson, now turned into the film Just Mercy by Destin Daniel Cretton.

In the film, Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) meets Walter McMillian (Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role nominee Jamie Foxx), a man who was placed on death row for murder before he even got a trial. Rounding out the stellar ensemble cast is Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Tim Blake Nelson.

I chatted with Destin Daniel Cretton about why he decided to make this film, what it says about white privilege, and whether he’s seen the other film about death row coming out this season.

Awards Daily: I really loved this movie. And I was blown away that this story was true. How did you decide to take on this project?

Destin Daniel Cretton: I was sent the book [Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption] by producer Gil Netter, and the book just really moved me both to tears and also with humor, the amount that [author] Bryan [Stevenson] put into these characters. It was painted so relatably, getting to know them through those pages. It really helped me feel very connected to an issue that up until that point I’d only experienced through statistics or things that I had learned. By the end of finishing that book, I felt I wanted to be a part of it any way I could.

AD: After you read the book, how much research did you do for this film? 

DDC: Obviously I wanted to meet Bryan Stevenson. He was out in LA for a book signing, and I met with him there. Once you’re in the presence of Bryan, you quickly realize that he’s not just a man of words: He really backs up his words with action and a lifetime of service to the most vulnerable people in our society. Having that conversation with him and hearing how he connected with [my film] Short Term 12 and the way that those characters were portrayed, he was able to see that I could be a good fit for helping him tell this story. It was an incredible honor to be invited to participate in that with him.

AD: As a filmmaker of color, do you feel it’s a responsibility to portray stories like this? Was that something that also interested you?

DDC: I’m always looking for stories that allow more people to see themselves up on screen. In this case, I really felt like this was honestly Bryan’s story to tell. I felt like a student and a servant to his story, trying to find the best way to tell that as possible. But we were also servants to the African American community, particularly in the areas of the South and the current clients of Bryan Stevenson, to create a story that they would be able to watch and see themselves up on screen. Within the past few weeks, Bryan screened the film for Walter McMillian’s family and to hear their response and their excitement for the movie has been really fulfilling.

AD: I want to talk about probably one of my favorite scenes of 2019. Without spoiling, it’s a scene in your film where a character is facing his execution. What was it like filming that scene? It’s so layered with sounds, texture, and emotion. 

DDC: It was a very emotional scene to shoot. The surprising thing about that scene was [that] it’s a scene that’s less about watching somebody go through the execution process; the heart of that scene is watching the love and the community of these inmates say goodbye to a friend. Seeing the camaraderie that they had was honestly what really surprised me when I was first doing the initial research for this. We interviewed Anthony Ray Hinton, who was on death row at the time with Walter McMillian and spent 30 years there for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s played by O’Shea Jackson Jr. in the movie. But we were interviewing him and he told us how they would bang on the bars with their cups every time someone was being executed. And I asked, ‘Was that a protest?’ which is what I would assume—they were protesting the system and the guards. And he said, ‘It was less about protesting and more about just letting our friend know that they weren’t alone, that they weren’t going through this experience alone.’ And that floored me when he said that. I just hadn’t realized the depth of the camaraderie that they had created on that cell block.

AD: That’s how I felt, too, watching it. It’s such a powerful moment. The film repeatedly points out that Monroeville, Alabama is Harper Lee’s hometown, where the white people in town treat Atticus Finch like he was a real-life person. What do you think this says about white privilege?

DDC: I think it’s easy for anybody who’s not affected by a problem to assume that there is no problem. I do think one of the biggest lies, most popular lies, of the South or just people of privilege in our country is that justice is for everybody and that slavery and racism is over and the Civil Rights Movement has already happened, so why are we still talking about it? One of the ironic truths of Bryan Stevenson’s story is that the people of Monroeville are proud of To Kill A Mockingbird and proud of Atticus Finch, because they think that all of that is behind them, that they’re not doing that anymore; the irony is that they’re doing it as they speak those words. I don’t think any of us are off the hook in that sense, even though we don’t live in Monroeville, myself included. We all have a bit of those blinders on when we don’t really take the time to think about the most vulnerable people and how they are affected by the system.

AD: Yeah, definitely. This film takes place 30 years ago. How much do you think things have changed since then? Or do you think maybe the message of the film is that things haven’t changed?

DDC: Yes and no. A lot of things have changed. Part of the message of the movie is that one person can make a difference. When Bryan Stevenson first decided as a young African American lawyer, fairly straight out of law school, to move to the South to start to work with people who are disenfranchised, it was not a logical move. The idea that he would potentially make a dent in this incredibly broken system was kind of a crazy idea at the time. Since then, when you look at the record of what he and his organization have done, it’s pretty phenomenal, the amount of change they have brought to this country. In the same breath, they are still doing the same fight today that they were doing in ’87, ’88, and ’89. They are still dealing with the same amount of oppression and a system that is so quick to judge and takes so long to admit that they might have made a mistake. That’s unfortunate, but I do think that, as crazy as it is right now, I do feel like there is a growing number of people who are speaking about these issues we haven’t really talked about in the past and wanting to do something to make things better.

AD: This is the second film about death row this movie season. Did you see Clemency? They both are complementary films in interesting ways. 

DDC: I have not seen Clemency, but I am definitely interested in seeing Clemency. I haven’t had time to watch any movies.

AD: It’s fantastic. Both of your films are. Both are vastly different, but they offer an interesting juxtaposition. 

DDC: I feel like that there are a handful of films earlier this year that all revolved around this issue. I think it’s really cool to all be coming out around the same time, to create a conversation about something people weren’t as willing to talk about a few years ago.

Just Mercy is in select theaters Christmas Day.