TV Talk: Pittsburgh native Antoine Fuqua directs Will Smith in ‘Emancipation’ on Apple TV+

Pittsburgh native Antoine Fuqua (“The Equalizer,” “Southpaw”) directed Will Smith in Apple TV+’s action-heavy, would-be awards contender “Emancipation” well before Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars earlier this year.

“Four hundred years of slavery is bigger than one moment,” Fuqua told Vanity Fair. “My hope is that people will see it that way and watch the movie and be swept away with the great performance by Will and all the real hard work that the whole crew did.”

Smith stars in “Emancipation” as Peter, a character based on a real-life historical figure, who escapes from slavery and evades hunters in the Louisiana swamps while trying to get back to his wife and children.

In a phone interview Sunday from Italy where he’s filming “The Equalizer 3” starring Denzel Washington, Fuqua told me he hadn’t been looking to make a Civil War-set story, but he was intrigued by the script and the prospect of an action film told from a slave’s point of view. Fuqua can see ties from his childhood growing up in Homewood and the Hill District to the movie.

“Perseverance, being brave, stepping into the world,” Fuqua, 57, said of the connection to his background, including the role of religion in the life of Peter’s family. “The biggest thing is my grandmother prayed all day from before the sun came up, it was all about God and family. Definitely family, doing whatever it takes to get back to family, so that all goes back to Pittsburgh.”

“Emancipation,” streaming Friday, has a unique visual look. The film’s color is desaturated to the point that it almost looks like it’s shot in black and white, but then there’s an occasional glimpse of color, like a flicker of flame in a fire. Fuqua said when he and the film’s director of photography, Bob Richardson (“Django Unchained”), first talked, Fuqua told Richardson he saw the movie as “beautiful and brutal.”

“Emancipation” lives up to that, especially the brutality. No one will confuse “Emancipation” with the feel-good movie of the year. Viewers who can tolerate displays of wicked inhumanity may appreciate some of Fuqua’s amazing aerial shots via drone that swoop through the scene in an immersive fashion. The cat-and-mouse search for Peter delivers an edge-of-the-seat thrill along with a few jump scares, but it’s not an easy watch.

“Hollywood sometimes has a tendency to (show the Civil War) in a golden light, like ‘Gone with the Wind,’ and that’s not the perspective of a slave,” Fuqua said. “The slave probably feels like he’s on another planet. So I wanted to make it feel like another planet. If you landed in that opening shot in the swamps, (it would feel like) you could be on Mars or another world where people were treating each other like animals. That’s what I was trying to convey.

“Another thought was this is God’s world and man corrupts it,” continued Fuqua, a 1983 graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School. “So there were times in the swamp where I would just have a little color come though to remind me this is our Earth. … This is real.”

In addition to some controversy around releasing “Emancipation” now so its press tour can serve as a reputation reclamation project for Smith — his performance shows incredible commitment to the character; but no matter how good any person’s acting is, it can’t wallpaper over real-world violence — there also are some in the Black community who have expressed a weariness with stories that repeatedly shine a spotlight on Black trauma.

“I respect everyone’s opinion, but it’s really not about Black trauma; that’s people who want to look at it that way,” Fuqua said. “I made a movie about a guy who’s inspired us since 1863 to tell a story. … So it’s about inspiration, it’s about perseverance. It’s a love story in the sense of getting back to the family. If they can take the veil off and look at the film just as a film they’ll find it enjoyable — not enjoyable subject matter, but the journey.”

In Italy, Fuqua said he and Denzel Washington have traded notes on Pittsburgh, where Washington starred in 2010’s “Unstoppable” and starred in and directed 2016’s “Fences,” an adaptation of the play by Pittsburgh native playwright August Wilson.

“Yeah, we talk about the Hill District. He loves it there,” said Fuqua, who hopes to get back to Pittsburgh over the holidays to visit his parents, who now live in the Penn Hills area, and an ailing 93-year-old aunt.

Critics Choice Award noms

ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and AMC’s “Better Call Saul”led the television nominations for the 28th annual Critics Choice Awards, airing 7-10 p.m. Jan. 15 on The CW. (Full disclosure: I’m a voting member of CCA.)

In addition to “Saul,” best drama series nominees include Disney+’s “Star Wars” series “Andor,” Apple TV+’s “Bad Sisters,” Netflix’s “The Crown,” HBO’s “Euphoria,” Paramount+’s “The Good Fight,” HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” Apple TV+’s “Severance” and Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone.”

Besides “Abbott,” comedy nominees are HBO’s “Barry,” FX’s “The Bear,” FX’s “Better Things,” CBS’s “Ghosts,” HBO Max’s “Hacks,” Hulu’s “Reboot” and FX’s “Reservation Dogs.”

Nominees with Pittsburgh connections include Sterling K. Brown as best actor and Mandy Moore as best actress in the final season of NBC’s partially Pittsburgh-set “This Is Us” and Carnegie Mellon University grad Renee Elise Goldsberry for best actress in a comedy for Peacock’s “Girls5eva.” Mt. Lebanon native David Hollander co-wrote and directed Showtime’s “Ray Donovan: The Movie,” which was nominated for best made-for-TV movie.

Of local note

Former Pittsburghers Billy Porter and Wiz Khalifa will have roles in “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” (8 p.m. Dec. 31, WTAE-TV) with Porter as co-host from New Orleans where he’ll perform a medley of his songs and Khalifa will perform “Memory Lane” and “Black & Yellow” at the show’s Los Angeles party. … Donkey Hodie and Purple Panda from Fred Rogers Productions’ PBS children’s puppet show “Donkey Hodie” will present an award at the creative arts ceremony for the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, streaming Saturday at 8 p.m. at Watch.TheEmmys.TV. … Netflix released a full trailer for filmed-in-Western-Pennsylvania movie “The Pale Blue Eye,” streaming Jan. 6 and in limited theatrical release Jan. 23 including at Shenango Valley Cinemas, Hermitage, and Diamond Theatre of Ligonier. Both theaters are near filming locations from the movie.

Channel surfing

ABC News benched “GMA3” anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes after the disclosure of their romantic relationship while married to other people. … Digital subchannel Decades (over-the-air Channel 61.1) will remember the late Kirstie Alley with a marathon of her “Cheers” episodes from 12 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Monday. … HBO Max canceled “FBoy Island” after two seasons. … Once Trevor Noah signs off from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” this week, the show will be on hiatus until Jan. 17 when a series of guest hosts fill in, including Al Franken, Chelsea Handler, D.L. Hughley, Leslie Jones, John Leguizamo, Hasan Minhaj, Kal Penn, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Marlon Wayans and current “Daily Show” correspondents and contributors.