Mahershala Ali and Benjamin Cleary on sci fi drama 'Swan Song'

Live from AFI Fest, “Swan Song” director Benjamin Cleary and actor Mahershala Ali discuss the heartbreaking inspiration for the film, the challenges of shooting during a pandemic, and improvising scenes with Naomie Harris. Plus, Ali shares why every role — from a commercial to “Blade” — is equally important to him. Mark Olsen: Hello, everyone! I’m Mark Olsen, and you’re listening to “The Envelope. ” We’re back to our regular schedule starting next Tuesday. But in the meantime, we wanted to share this bonus episode with all of you. Last November, I had the pleasure of moderating a Q&A at AFI Fest following the world premiere of “Swan Song. ” I got to speak with Benjamin Cleary, who wrote and directed the movie, and Mahershala Ali, who not only stars in “Swan Song” but also produced it. The film was a mix between sci-fi and drama and tells the story of a terminally ill man who must decide between breaking the bad news to his wife — played by Naomie Harris — or keeping his family blissfully unaware by replacing himself with a clone.[Archival clip from “Swan Song”: Cameron: I can’t lie to my family anymore. Dr. Scott: The second you tell your wife that you are dying, your opportunity to do this is gone. ]Olsen: Believe it or not, this is actually two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali’s first lead role in a feature film, or maybe I should say roles since he played more than one character. Anyway, without further ado, here’s my conversation with Benjamin Cleary and Mahershala Ali. Benjamin, you’ve said how this stemmed in part from your own experiences with grief, having lost a few friends. Can you talk a little bit about how that experience transformed into the story of “Swan Song? ”Benjamin Cleary: Yeah, I lost three friends when I was 19, 20, 21, three summers in a row. I think events like that affect you. They change you. You see the ripples of grief emanate out. You feel yourself. You see the loved ones that are affected. And ultimately, I think it changed how I navigated the world, how I saw the world. I constantly catastrophized about what if someone else I loved could die? Or what if I died? What would it do to my family? And then I think a premise like “Swan Song” comes into your brain years later, and you feel like you’re in a position to tell a completely imagined story, but hopefully be able to step into the shoes of a character like that and imbue it with some kind of truth. And then when you do finally go through all the pain of writing it and you’re as lucky as I was to get to work with someone like Mahershala, I think we all … hopefully the script has some truth in it, and then we all start to speak about our own connections to it, and I think people pick up on the fact that it has come from somewhere personal. Olsen: Mahershala, those core feelings of grief and also confronting one’s own mortality, how did you connect to those feelings? And did it become personal for you? Mahershala Ali: I think it always is in some way. All data is taken from the source: http://latimes.com Article Link: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment... #mahershala #newmovies #newsworldabc #newstodayworld #newstodayupdate #newstodayheadlines #