In “Emperor of Ocean Park”, Oscar Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker is the patriarch of a powerful political family entrenched in judicial scandals.
Whitaker plays Oliver Garland, an esteemed judge whose untimely death, of an apparent heart attack, is suspicious to his daughter, Mariah (actress Tiffany Mack), a former investigative journalist.
Chaos ensues following the burial of Judge Garland as Mariah and her brothers Talcott (actor Grantham Coleman) and Addison (Henry Simmons) are now tasked with untangling a decade of lies, bribes, and corruption that dates back to a hit-and-run accident that caused the death of their youngest sibling Abby (Avery Holliday).
Amid confirmation hearings where Judge Garland is in the process of being interviewed for a seat on the Supreme Court, he rescinds the nomination when it’s discovered that he’s had numerous ex-parte meetings with his friend, Jack Ziegler, (actor Torrey Hanson) a former CIA operative involved with espionage. The audience later finds out that during these meetings Ziegler was blackmailing Judge Garland into altering court cases in favor of his corporate colleagues.
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In exchange, Judge Garland would receive bribe money which he used to start a scholarship fund in honor of his late daughter, Abby. Though unable to admit his wrongdoings while alive, Judge Garland documented every sin in a file known as “the arrangements.”
The Garlands can barely make funeral arrangements for their father before “Uncle Jack” and a plethora of other adversaries are pressuring the siblings to locate the Judge’s “arrangements.” Through a series of chess references and political themes, the Garland siblings become unwitting pawns in a plot to uncover the illicit documents.
After reading the eponymous book written by Stephen L. Carter in 2002 and discovering the many similarities between his actual life and the fictitious “Talcott Garland,” a law professor at the epicenter of the murder mystery, actor Grantham Coleman knew this role was for him.
“Talcott is another version of myself. In real life, my dad is a judge, and I grew up thinking I was going to be a lawyer. I followed a lot of rules, tried to get straight A’s, and do everything the right way. I was constantly seeking the approval of my parents, and I tried to make everyone proud” Coleman told the LA Sentinel.
“Being the person that I grew up trying to be and getting to see that in the book, let alone a book about a Black family and somebody who’s going through the loss of a parent and struggling with grief, seeing how that influences him as a husband and father and how he operates in his life? I couldn’t just let [this role] go. It was such a blessing to be able to tell this story” he added.
Coleman as well as his co-star Tiffany Mack went on to rave about their experience working with Forest Whitaker.
“He has such a great generosity of spirit,” said Mack. “That’s the ethos that I was trained in when I was coming up in acting school, but sometimes it’s rare to encounter that in the real world, to see someone who’s such a titan in this industry meet you with grace, humility, and kindness.
“He’s someone that asks ‘Are you good? Do you feel like you got what you need?’ He takes care of you as a scene partner, in addition to being an incredibly intelligent actor himself,” she added.
“Forest is a wonderful human being,” said Coleman. “He’s a quiet man with a big heart who leads by example. When he would talk, I was always leaning forward like, ‘Yes, Mr. Whitaker, no, Mr. Whitaker’ and he’s like, ‘It’s Forest.’ Working with him on set, in front of the camera, getting to see how he would use all of his tools to make the scene better was a masterclass.”
Similarly, another one of Coleman’s co-stars, actress Jasmine Batchelor praised Coleman’s performance.
“We’ve known each other since 2011 so I’ve seen him grow into such a wonderful, charismatic, kind, incredibly imaginative actor,” said Batchelor who cites Coleman’s theater work amongst her favorite roles of his. In “Emperor” Batchelor plays Maxine, one of the many people in search of the elusive “arrangements” left by Judge Garland. Maxine uses her feminine wiles to seduce Talcott and blur the lines between business and pleasure. “Maxine adds mystery, intrigue, and also a sense of danger to the show” said Batchelor.
When asked about adapting the award-winning book into a screenplay and whether or not all of the plot lines are tied up by the end of episode ten, series creator Sherman Payne shared, “Pacing and taking a piece of literary material and writing it for the screen is an art that we’re all still working hard to understand. Pacing has a lot of trial and error because we’re trying to stay true to the book. We’re asking ourselves, ‘…since this thing that happens in the middle of the book should it happen in the middle of the show, or should it happen later or earlier?’ These are questions that you’re asking yourself throughout,” said Payne. “In terms of the end of the series, you do get answers to those big questions, but those answers create even more questions. And I’m wondering if perhaps there could be a season two where we start to answer those questions? It could go on forever” he added.
New episodes of “Emperor of Ocean Park” air weekly on MGM+.
