‘Black Box’ stars Mamoudou Athie and Phylicia Rashad Talk Favorite Memories and Diving into Character
“Working with Phylicia and Emmanuel is a gift.”
BLACK BOX is just one in a slate of brand-new films from Blumhouse Productions in a package titled WELCOME TO BLUMHOUSE. Directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffor and starring Mamoudou Athie (UNCORKED) and Phylicia Rashad (THE COSBY SHOW), the film follows a single father who, following a tragic car accident where he lost his wife, undergoes an experimental treatment that causes him to question his own memories.
The film operates in the same vein as MEMENTO and engages its audience from start to finish. With elements of both drama and thriller, the story also functions as a character study that allowed the actors to dive deep into their roles.
With Athie at the beginning of his career and Rashad almost 50 years into hers, they each had a kind response when asked what they learned from each other on the set of the film:
“I did not teach Ms. Phylicia Rashad anything,” Athie quipped. “It was a gift to work with her.”
Quickly rebutting, Rashad said:
“It isn’t quite true that you couldn’t teach me anything because I learned a lot from you, actually. Mamoudou has this incredible ability to go deep into thought and the movement of it. He goes to the subtle layers of the inner world of the character—things that are not on the page, things most people probably wouldn’t even think of—and he goes there. And he lives there. And it’s amazing to work with that.”