[Editor's note: The following contains major spoilers for Get Millie Black.]
Produced for HBO and Channel 4 by Motive Pictures, the five-episode crime thriller Get Millie Black follows ex-Scotland Yard detective Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrance) on a manhunt in her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica to find a young boy and get him back to his parents. While unraveling a tangled mystery, Millie is also fighting family demons, wanting to reconcile with a sister who wants no part of the past. We learn about who Millie is, in her past and present, by hearing about her from the point of view of her sister Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen), Holborn (Joe Dempsie), Janet (Shernet Swearine) and Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jr), giving insight beyond what we could know just through her eyes and self-imposed emotional walls.
Get Millie Black is a TV series inspired both by creator Marlon James’ birthplace of Jamaica as well as his police detective mother. It’s a story about Kingston as much as it’s about Millie Black, who is a good cop, a flawed woman, a supportive sister, and someone who wants to do the right thing, even when it brings consequence for herself. During this one-on-one interview with Collider, James talked about the five-episode season, why the story resolved the way it did, and the hope of doing another season. He also discussed how surprising the mystery was to him as he wrote it, how Millie is a character you can love even if you don’t like her, how surreal it was to see Lawrance bring this character to life, the dynamic between Millie and Hibiscus and the jaw-dropping performance by McQueen, the experience of making a TV series, and what he’d like to do with a Season 2.
Collider: I love a good cop drama where the mystery unravels over the season. And with this, I found the setting equally interesting.
MARLON JAMES: Even though it’s a cop show, and it’s a cop show with a lot of the tropes of a cop show, it feels like a story that could only have happened there. Even when I got to London, I knew it was still going to be something that’s mostly in the streets. This is not the kind of story that happens behind closed doors. Well, the crime happens behind closed doors. All the stuff that goes into the solving or eradication of crime takes place in the city. It was important for me that people see a Jamaica they haven’t seen. It’s not just Jamaica, it’s Kingston. I knew I wanted the city to become almost a character in itself.
With 'Get Millie Black,' Creator Marlon James Knew He Was Telling a Story About Jamaica As Much as He Was Millie
Image via HBO
What was it that inspired this, to start with? Did you start with wanting to tell a story set in Jamaica, or did you start with Millie and then establish her world?
JAMES: That’s a good question. Usually with my novels, I start with characters and wonder why the hell they popped up in my head. But they both happened at the same time. I knew that Jamaica would be a good setting for this kind of noir story. This is loosely based on a story I wrote for a collection, called Kingston Noir, years ago. I grew up basically in a film noir, without knowing it. I’ve always liked stories that complicate the Jamaican narrative because I think it’s very easy. Either we’re caught up in urban warfare or we’re a beach paradise, and there is more to the story, more to the country, and more to what happens than that. So, I think it was both. With my novels sometimes the characters show up alone, but with this, I knew I was telling a story about Kingston as much as I was about Millie.
What is the experience like for you, just in general, to be exploring and telling a story that you experienced growing up? What’s it like, as an adult, to then look back on the experience? Did it give you a different perspective at all?
JAMES: Yes and no. Most of the stuff I’ve written, and certainly with my novel A Brief History, I was alive during that time. I was a kid and I had a child’s version or view of what’s going on, and even when I was super perceptive, it doesn’t mean that I totally understood what was going on. When I was growing up, it’s not like I fully understood my mom’s job. At the same time, Jamaica is a small country, so you become very aware and very self-aware very quickly. I remember a lot of days, leaving school to go to my mom’s work where I used to wait for her to come off work, so I could go home. It’s not like these guys are shielding police work from you. I would know who just came in, who was arrested, who was in there for murder, who was in there for double murder. I grew up in that police station. So, there was a lot of it that I already knew, but a lot of it, I was playing on memories of what a Jamaican police station is like. I’ve been around good cops and bad cops. I’ve been around dedicated cops and lazy cops. I’ve seen the good and the bad. I already knew a lot of it. That said, just because you know something, it doesn’t mean you know it. You still have to research and ask questions.
Doing police work is really its own world with its own language.
JAMES: It’s society adjacent, but not really society, in a way. It’s interesting to me where cops live. Do they live with the people that they interact with on a professional level or do they live apart? I knew that I was interested in the private lives of these Jamaican cops. Hopefully, if we do another season, we’ll get to do more of that.
What was it like, as a writer, to take and follow the journey of the mystery? As you kept pulling at threads, did you know where you wanted to end up, or were not sure of your ending until you got there?
JAMES: I never know. If it’s a surprise to the viewer, it was a surprise to me when I wrote it. Sure, I can have an overall idea of an arc of a story, but when your characters become people, and there’s a certain point in the writing where your characters feel like people, then they start to do things you wouldn’t expect. When I first started this thing, I never imagined that Millie ended up in the UK under a false name. When you write characters and put them in situations, people always do things that might surprise you. That’s what happens when I write novels as well. It’s one of the reasons why my novels are always either in first person or narrated. I brought that to the TV show as well. It’s closer to the human voice. When I have characters tell a story, they become more real to me and do things that I wouldn’t expect. They surprise and they disappoint, or they shock. I like to be open-ended in that way, because I think that’s how life is too.
This British limited series uses a hefty investigation as a means to explore race and class.
It was so interesting to have each episode highlight a different character’s perspective of Millie because it gives the viewer permission to feel how they’re feeling about her when you hear somebody else talk about her. She’s not the easiest character to get to know all the time.
JAMES: No, and that was very important to me. I think it’s easier for people to digest a male anti-hero, especially if he’s cute. I wanted a female character who takes us to the brink of like or dislike. I don’t think Millie is likable, thank God. I think she is a character you may love, even if you don’t like her. There are decisions that she makes that we wouldn’t make. And to me, that was important. It was important to me that she was flesh and blood, but also somebody who is really far.
We’re used to these morally grey characters being men, and I found it really refreshing to see that with Millie.
JAMES: Millie is a charmer. One of the things that Millie is very good at is that she knows what to say to disarm you. She does it with Janet, making a nasty crack about white male anatomy. She is also a charmer. But if you’re in her vortex, you may get some shrapnel.
It’s interesting that this series is only five episodes, which seems like it would be short, but it packs so much story into each episode. I love that we get time at home with Curtis and his relationship, and with Millie coming over to have dinner with her relationship. Even though this show is titled after Millie and you have this crime you need to resolve, was it equally important to you to have those moments that also show these characters outside their careers?
JAMES: Yeah, it was extremely important to me. In some ways, the relationships are more important. That’s one of the things I liked about Mare of Easttown. In a lot of ways, it’s the relationships that are important. Honestly, any kind of cop can solve a mystery. But what are the balls that she’s juggling in the air at the same time? What does it take for everybody in this show to show up for work every day? For Millie, she lives in this house where she sleeps on the couch. She goes to work every day because she doesn’t have to sit in her own house. Curtis goes to work every day because he thinks change is happening. As long as he keeps his lives distinct, then he’s cool. And I’m interested in that. I’m interested in, what does it take to get you out of bed and get you to this place? And what are you going home to after that?
'Get Millie Black' Creator Marlon James Knew Tamara Lawrance Was Perfect for the Title Role
What was it like to see the character of Millie brought to life, in that way? After you spend so much time with a character and in the head of a character, what is it like to see the physical embodiment of Millie?
JAMES: It’s surreal. Sometimes the person who ends up in the role may not be who you pictured. I pictured all sorts of people, including people who are not even alive, in the role. What does happen, and you hope it happens, is that somebody seems to come out of nowhere and that’s the person. It’s like Harper Lee screaming, “Oh, my God, it’s Atticus,” when she saw Gregory Peck. I don’t think she was writing it going, “I think Gregory Peck would be perfect for this role.” I think that’s what happened to me with Chyna. And that happened to me with Tamara. They give a reading and you’re like, “Oh, my God, it’s her.”
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I loved the relationship between Millie and Hibiscus. It was so compelling to watch and it made me cry more than once. They’re so powerful together that I was completely blown away by the fact that it’s Chyna McQueen’s screen debut. What was it like to see that performance and that character brought to life?
JAMES: That was jaw-dropping. Chyna’s character Hibiscus is based on an actual Gully Queen that I saw in a documentary, who also made me cry. I knew when I saw that documentary that that character had to be in this story. Even then, I thought it would probably be some veteran actor or actress, who hopefully was queer or trans. And then, here comes Chyna, who’s never acted before, and people were crying from the first screen test. There were scenes when the whole crew just fell silent. It’s shorter in the show, but it was longer when we were filming it, when Chyna said, “I’m not sitting here alone with this ghost in the house,” and she breaks down. The actual filming was way longer, and you could just hear a pin drop because of the way everybody was moved. You think she’s been acting her whole life.
Did you always know that you wanted to have her find and rescue Romeo? Was that important to you?
JAMES: I think it was very important for her that she saved Romeo. She couldn’t save Victor, the person that haunts her. I think it was very important that she saves him, largely because whether she saved him or not, there’s still a price to pay. I also didn’t want the show to get that dark. It’s dark enough. Millie is still ultimately a good cop. She does save people and she does make people’s lives better, even if it’s at a cost to her. So, yeah, I knew she was going to save him. I knew it was important that she saves this child, but there are consequences.
‘Get Millie Black’s Creator Marlon James Would Like To Continue Telling This Story
Image via HBO
You mentioned possibly doing another season. Is that something you want to do? Do you have more story ideas for what you could do with Millie?
JAMES: Yeah. It’d be great to do another season. I think there’s a lot of unfinished business. If there is a Season 2 of Get Millie Black, then it changes from “Get Millie Black” to “Somebody’s out to get her.” The brother and sister are still alive, although they’ve had their major plans thwarted. Millie saved one person but lost a lot. These people are still around, so the consequences of all that has happened is something that I think could make a pretty powerful season.
"The more flawed and unlikable somebody is, the more we get a chance to see ourselves," says Lawrance of her 'Get Millie Black' character.
Is this something you’re hoping to do again, as far as writing a TV series again? Do you want to do more of that?
JAMES: Yeah. It’s a different kind of writing, definitely. It took some getting used to. Collaboration is very interesting. I write novels, so I sit in a room, and then hand it to my editor and he says, “Yea or nay.” To create these characters who have these lives and these afterlives and all these aspects that I probably wouldn’t write in a novel because I don’t know it, but when you’re writing with a team, then you have people who know it. You have all this wealth of experience and you end up with the kind of stories that one person couldn’t do. That’s exciting. Sometimes I don’t wanna write everything. Writing scripts and writing dialog, but also writing for something that other people will make come alive, is really exciting and something I could definitely do more of.
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A former Scotland Yard detective returns to Jamaica to investigate a missing persons case, which leads her deep into the underworld of Kingston. As she uncovers dark secrets, the case threatens to expose far more than she ever imagined, exploring themes of identity, race, and post-colonial trauma.
Release Date
November 25, 2024
Cast
Tamara Lawrance
, Joe Dempsie
, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr
, Chyna McQueen
, Nestor Aaron Absera
, Shernet Swearine
, Karen Smyth
, Polina Sulim
, Sam Buchanan
, Anjli Mohindra
, Daniel Charles Doherty
, Lucas Jones
, Guy Robbins
, Emma Cater
, Hannah Boyde
, Melessa Vassell
, Joanna Ignaczewska
, Rachel Sophia-Anthony
, Sonia Amini
, Joseph Samimi
, Maya R. Wilkinson
, Ayesha Griffiths
, Julian Amos
Seasons
1
Creator(s)
Marlon James
Get Millie Black is available to stream at Max. Check out the trailer:
Image via HBO
Image via HBO
Image via HBO
English (US) ·