Tales about Black people during the 1800s have long been rooted in the evils of slavery and struggle. Hulu’s latest book adaptation, Washington Black, gives viewers a peek inside the imagination that was still front and center amid those trying times.

According to the series description:

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, Washington Black follows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When a harrowing incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges and reshapes his understanding of family, freedom and love. As he navigates uncharted lands and impossible odds, Wash finds the courage to imagine a future beyond the confines of the society he was born into.

Ernest Kingsley Jr. stars as George Washington Black, a character that showcases courage like never before and an intelligence that is important to note during those times, alongside Sterling K. Brown, who shines as Medwin Harris and serves as an executive producer on the project.

Other cast members include Rupert Graves as Mr. Goff, Iola Evans as Tanna Goff, Edward Bluemel as Billy McGee, Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Miss Angie, and Tom Ellis as Wilde.

Showcasing imagination as a means of freedom

“I feel like it’s a superpower against the odds,” Kingsley told Blavity’s Shadow and Act, during our cast interview, of how imagination serves as George Washington Black’s ticket to freedom as he fights the fight of survival.

“It’s this kind of suit and armor against his current circumstances,” he continued. “He has that gift to imagine, and therefore he has that gift to visualize a better circumstance than his current one,” adding, “With that imagination, he invents with this creativity, all these amazing things — aquarium, of course, and the flying machine, it’s absolutely incredible. I feel like it’s definitely, as you said, many times, like an act of resistance, that imagination.”

In the eighth episode, the character finally gets the chance to fly and journey to where his mother, Big Kit, played by Shaunette Renée Wilson, is from is something that Kingsley said was a full-circle moment not only for his character, but himself as an actor.

“Oh my gosh, those episode scenes, because I hadn’t worked with, most of the scenes with Shaunette, who plays Big Kit, it was with young Wash Eddie, so getting the chance to kind of act alongside her, I was like, wow,” he recalled. “Like, I really felt the full-circle moment, and just also the optics of how it all started off and being in because that wasn’t in the book that we meet at the end, but being able to have that full-circle moment, be in this kind of spiritual realm, and relish in the fact that, you know, ‘I’ve seen you grow up. I instilled in you all these spiritual elements, and I never left you, and look what you became.'”

Kingsley added, “Look what that gift God has given you, of dreams and imagination, has taken you. I was like, ‘Wow, this is so special.'”

The dynamic between Brown’s and Kingsley’s characters

While much of Washington Black is rooted in the fight for freedom and survival and how that is powered by dreams and imagination, at the core of this story is also identity and love.

The friendship between Wash and Medwin showcases a platonic love and how friends can oftentimes be the catalyst for the change we wish to see within ourselves, while on the other hand, Wash’s relationship with Tanna is what Brown calls “iron sharpening iron.”

“You see two dreamers who are sort of confined by a certain set of circumstances,” Brown told us, expanding upon his thoughts on Tanna and Wash. “Whether it’s you, sort of like denying your identity with the hopes of maintaining safety, or her for the same reason, denying her full identity with the hopes of having some sort of safety, right? And then slowly but surely, you each say, ‘Oh, you know what? We have to be our fullest version of who we are if we want to be the happiest version of ourselves, we can’t deny any part of ourselves to live a full life.'”

He added, “Then for Medwin, Medwin is a survivalist, right? And so the idea is just like we need to stay alive, right? And Wash sort of unlocks within him; there’s more to life than just surviving. There’s a full vision. There’s a fully realized vision of who you can be, and if you’re just stuck in survival, you will never be able to thrive, right? And so, Wash unlocks within Mediwn, like, ‘You know what? I’ve been denying myself love, and I thought, just because I have to focus on all these other things to make sure that everybody’s living, but then ultimately, seeing you love is like, this love thing is not a bad thing. I should probably allow a little bit of that in my life,’ so Wash unlocks a lot of that. Everywhere he goes, he gives people permission to be a fuller version of themselves.”

The full season of Washington Black is now streaming on Hulu.

Ernest Kingsley Jr.

Get relevant content delivered to you once a week