Fresh Air - Clarke Peters: From ‘The Wire’ to ‘The Boroughs’

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Peters’ credits include police Detective Lester Freamon in ‘The Wire,’ a Vietnam veteran in Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods,’ and now a retiree in the supernatural thriller ‘The Boroughs’ on Netflix. Peters spoke with Terry Gross about his long career on stage and screen, his singing voice, and why he relocated to London in the ‘70s. “I picked this profession so that I would have longevity, so that I could still be acting at 100, if it comes to it,” he says. Also, David Bianculli reviews the Apple 10-part miniseries ‘Cape Fear.’See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. So many of us became aware of what a great actor Clark Peters is from his role in one of the best TV series ever made HBO's The Wire. He played police detective Lester Freeman, who helped track down the drug dealers the detectors were looking for through his research and his analysis of wiretaps. The series was co-created by David Simon, who also co-created the HBO series, Tremay, said in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Peters co-starred in that too as a Mardi Gras Indian chief who returns to his damaged home and tries to rebuild his life. In Spike Lee's film to Five Bloods, he was one of the four Vietnam vets who returns to Vietnam decades after the war. Now he's one of the stars of the Netflix series The Burrows. Clark plays one of the residents in a retirement community that promises an almost utopian chapter of your life. But some of the residents start dying, while others start experiencing. some very disturbing, inexplicable encounters and visions. Something's going on, and it seems to be something supernatural.

Clark Peters grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, but moved to Europe in the 70s and settled in London where he continues to live and is speaking to us from. He's been in London stage productions of the musicals Guys and Dolls, Porgy and Bess, and Chicago, as well as dramas. He co-wrote and co-starred in the original production of the music. musical Five Guys Name Mo, which was first staged in London. It moved to Broadway, where it was also a big hit. Clark Peters, welcome to Fresh Air. It's such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. That was a lovely introduction. I did all that.

You did a lot more than that, but I figured let me keep my intro short so we have more time to actually talk. I could have gone on. I left out a lot of series and movies. So let's get to the Burroughs. So the cast is largely in their 60s and 70s. because it's set in a retirement community. You yourself, you know, as Clark Peters, you're in your mid-70s. What kind of roles do you think you would have been offered at this age when you started professionally, acting professionally in the 1970s? Well, I picked this profession so that I would have longevity.

So that I could still be acting at 100 if it comes to it. But starting out, I always played older people. So in driving Miss Daisy, for example, with Dame Wendy Hiller, I think I was in my late 30s playing Hoke, who was well up into his 80s. And I looked at a diary that I'd written. And on one page, it was, I'm tired of playing old guys because there's no future in it. but I'm still here playing old guys. What appealed to you about the role on the boroughs? To tell you, the truth, honestly, I didn't want to do the burrows

because someone had likened it to stranger things, which I hadn't seen before this offer came through. And what I didn't want to be doing was acting. as I'm chasing monsters until I'm 80 years old. But then I read the script. And I thought, oh, I can resonate with this journey, with the quest that art is on. And then I looked at the cast, and I thought,

oh, there's just no way I can say no to this. There are roles for older people, where, especially sometimes when the cast is all about older people, where I sense something condescending. They're either like, oh, it's so cute, they're on an adventure, you know. Oh, it's so cute, they're still walking. Oh, it's so cute. They're still breathing.

They're still breathing. Oh, it's so cute. They've fallen in love. Do you get offered roles like that, and what do you do? Yes, I try to let people know that just because we live in a society where we we take the elderly and we hide them away. Doesn't mean that they're not valued or that they have something to offer. And I like to at least have that conversation, you know, that the elderly remember the past.

You know, and if you want to move forward, you better talk to some older people, you know, and yes, we do fall in love. And yes, we do have adventures. And there are still things to discover even at this age. I'm not going to slow down just because I'm a septuagenarian. That just does not make sense. That's the furthest from my mind and hopefully from my body. So finding roles that are like the boroughs, you know,

where there's a group of people who are the same age having an administration. adventure, I like that. Otherwise, you know, I've been somebody's dad, somebody's grandfather, you know, I'd just like to be somebody's brother, somebody's lover, you know, and just carry on as life is, as it really is. I hope you're not tired talking about the wire, but it is one of the best TV series ever made, maybe the best, and you were one of the stars, so can we talk about that just a little? Sure, you talk about it a lot. Thank you.

So you played police detective Lester Freeman, and you're the detective who finds clues through like online research and files through contacts, wiretaps, and you can put two and two together and synthesize the clues that you found into some kind of path. But you start off in the series working the pawn shop beat. And I want to play a scene from early on in the first season. You've just found an important clue that no one else on the investigation has been able to find identifying who Avon Barksdale is. Yes. And so he's one of the two major drug dealers in the series. So here's a scene where Detective Jimmy McNulty comes to see you in your office. He's impressed with the work you've done.

But when he walks in, he finds you putting together miniature models of furniture. And McNulty's played by Dominic West, and he speaks first. So you're a police after all. You know what you're doing, but you ain't been doing it. How long you've been in the pawn shop unit? 13 years and four months. 13 years? And four months.

I've got to ask you. What exactly does a police officer assign to the pawn shop unit do? You and take reports from registered pawn shops on all items valued over $50. Then you make an index card for that item. Then you file that index card. If someone wants to find out if something stolen has been pawned, We look to see if we have an index card. If we do, we do.

If we don't, we don't. You did that for 13 years? And four months. Why'd you ask out of homicide? Well, no ask about it. You got the boot? Uh-huh. What'd you do to piss them off?

Police work. I think I need to buy you a drink. Just one? I heard you say, as we were listening to that four months, just one. You remember the lines from that? I remember the scene. Yes. This was one of your first scenes, right?

Yeah, yeah. Is that also why you remember it? No, I didn't remember it until we started to hear it. Oh, and then it came back to you. And then it came back to me, yes, yeah. I'm not one of those actors that holds on to the stuff. I'm amazed, you know, when Ian McClellan, for example, all of a sudden out of nowhere start reciting reams of Shakespeare that is appropriate to a particular moment

that we're living today. I don't have that kind of mind. But when I hear something like that, it's like playing music. You know what key you're playing, and you figure I remember this melody, so you pick it up from there. Is Lester the role you auditioned for?

Did I audition for Lester? No, I don't think I did, but I was quite happy. to land in Lester's lap, so to speak. He's the guy I want to be when I grow up. Because he does do police work. He doesn't have access to the internet.

It was old-fashioned research, and you went through volumes of tomes of information, whether it was banking or whether it was in this particular instance, real estate records, and then having to cross-reference that. You know, my mind likes that kind of agility. You know, and I liked that being applied in Lester's life. Did you only know the scenes you were in, or did you also get to see what was happening behind the scenes in city politics? and among the drug dealers and the corner boys.

And did you get to see their scenes? Or did you just know what you would know as your character? No. Back then, you know, we would get the whole episode and you would read the whole episode. Nowadays, you get a scene, you have no idea the context of the scene and you're asked to audition. I can't do that.

I refuse to do that. I think that that really makes our job. as actors, very difficult. When we have the whole story, then we can see how we fit into that story and how we can either enhance that story, sell it or whatever. At the end of the day, the star of any story is the story you're telling. It's not the person, you know, whose name is above the title. And when that becomes more, important than the story that we're telling, you know, then we just, we as actors, just become commodities, you know, I push back against that. I really do. And as far as, like, reading

every episode, I couldn't wait until the next episodes came. And I was always looking for that moment that said, Kima may be saying something to McNulty, like, did you hear what happened to Freeman? He caught one while he's pumping gas, you know. I never expected to be there that long, you know, Thank the Lord I was. What did you think of the police when you were growing up? And did playing a police detective give you an empathy for police that you maybe didn't feel before? I grew up with great respect for the police because in Anglewood, New Jersey. Anglewood, New Jersey.

We knew the police. We went to school with their children. They knew our parents. You know, and so it was almost something that you. may want it to aspire to. Going through the 60s and 70s, I lost total respect for the police because of their abuse of power. I don't have a lot of respect for them now for that same reason.

Yet, for those who are walking that beats and who are trying to do the right thing, I have the greatest respect for. And I know that we can be in a society that is policed in the proper way where the community as well is part of the health of that community with the police. I know that it took you years to actually watch the wire. So my question is, what's wrong with you? Work. I never had time to slow down long enough to watch it. And there's nothing wrong now, now that I've seen it, well done.

Were you surprised at how good it was? Yeah, I was. I was. I actually binge watched all five seasons. I had a double knee replacements, and I was recuperating. And I thought, you know, I've only seen the first two episodes of each season because that's what they would show before we finished shooting, and then I'd come back to England. it wasn't being shown in England and I would start work until

the next season of shooting. So I never got a chance to watch the whole season, you know, but then when I was sitting there with this ice pack on both of my knees, I just binge to watch it. I thought, this is really good.

I think I may even watch it twice. You know, just to really get the nuances of different people's performances but also the information that's being, imparted concerning our society. You know, that I found very, very insightful. Yeah, agreed.

You were one of the stars of Spike Lee's 2020 film to Five Bloods. And so this is about four black Vietnam vets who returned to Vietnam, decades after the war. They want to bring back the remains of the unit leader, Norm, who was killed in the battle, he helped the men survive and was also like a really good friend to these four. vets. So they're returning after having not seen each other for years, and they're going to bring back the remains of Norm, and they're going to search for the gold bars that they discovered and buried, hoping to bring them back and cash in. So this is your character talking about Norman, the squad leader, whose remains they're going back to find.

Wasn't many brothers who made squad leader. The man was using bloods for cannon fodder. They put our poor black s' in the front line killing us off like flies. Stormin earned his name. It was in all kind of firefights. Trained us in the way of the jungle. Made us believe that we would get home alive.

That was a scene from Spike Lee's film to Five Bloods featuring my guest, Clark Peters. You were an anti-war activist, and you served in part as kind of like a medic, helping people who were tear-gast or injured by the police. Can you describe your objections to the war? What you thought of the war and what you were willing to do to avoid the draft and avoid being sent to the war? First of all, I was with a group of students from Boston University. We had taken a bus down for the, I think the last moratorium, I'm not too sure. and as a medic

I was asked to not just look after the protesters, the demonstrators, but also if the police were hurt to look after them as well which seemed to make a lot of sense to my spirit.

When I was arrested my thought of America went down a notch. What were you arrested for? I was arrested for obstructing police lines after John Mitchell came on the top of the Department of Justice and asked everyone to leave in 20 minutes and gave us explicit directions on where to go. I followed those directions.

We all did just to find that we were being shunted into buses and taken to a holding cell in College Park, Maryland. It was absurd. and then to go to court the following day, we weren't even processed the first 12 hours, but then to go to court the following day and to be put in front of a judge, he said, you've got to be here in my court here sometime in June or whatever.

I think this happened in April. You have to be here in June, and I was planning on going to visit my older brother in Paris in June. He said, you're not going anywhere. Then bang the gavel and call for the next case. So I felt insignificant. I felt like an ant feeling a heel of the shadow of a foot coming down on top of me.

And if it wasn't for groups like the ACLU and the Urban League, I don't know what I would have done. I walked out of that courtroom in a daze. heartbroken, eyes full of tears, thinking, what just happened? I couldn't believe it. And someone's calling my name, and they're saying, would you like to have your retrial now? And this person guided me to another courtroom, into which, when we got to this courtroom, it was full of smoke because people smoked cigarettes back in those days. There was cheering coming from the gallery. and I walked into this courtroom, three tears.

At the top, there's a long-haired hippie drudge, and he's got a line of people in front of him, and he's processing them. He's saying, Jane Doe, you're arrested for obstructing police lines. How do you believe? Not guilty? He slammed the gavel. Next.

You know, next. And this is all happening in less than an hour. So were you gaveled not guilty? Of course I was gaveled not guilty. You know, and they gave me back my gas mask and my things and I hightailed it out of there. You know, to be exposed to our system like that with no information as to how our legal system is supposed to work, you know, to be taken up and then dropped down and then saved, It's a hell of an emotional rollercoaster for the day. I could have easily been lynched.

Who would have known? Who would have known? Well, at another time and another place, that was a real possibility. Maybe another time, but not necessarily another place. And that's my point, is that having had that experience, the scales dropped from my eyes. Well, let me reintroduce you because we need to take another break. My guess is Clark Peters, and he's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series, The Burroughs. He was one of the stars of the HBO series, The Wire.

He was in Spike Lee's film as one of the stars under five Bloods, and he's been in plenty of other things, including a lot of shows on the London stage. So we'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. So you settled first in Paris, and then you settled first in Paris, and then you moved to England, largely because of England's great reputation for great theater. And you got roles there. You even got a role in hair, which you had auditioned for several times in New York and never got.

So what's your theory about why you were getting more roles in England on the stage than you got in New York? First of all, my career began in England. My first professional job was in England with the Watford Rep, Repatory Company, doing guys and dolls. That's such a great show. The songs are so good. You played Sky Masterson, right? I did, yes, three times, there and then twice with the National Theater. How great is that? So you got to sing Luck Be a Lady, and... I've never been in love before. What a great duet.

Yeah. And also, the best song in that is My Time of Day. Oh. It's the Dark Time. You are so right and it's not in the movie. Yes, that's right, because he couldn't sing it. Well, it's got unusual intervals. Was it hard for you to sing?

Do you want to do a few bars of it? It's such a great song. My Time of Day is the Dark Time. A couple of deals before dawn. When the street belongs to the cop And the janitor with a mop And the grocery clerks are all gone And the smell of the rain-washed pavement

Comes up clean and fresh and cold And the street lamp light fills the gutters with gold That's my time of day My time of day and you're the only doll I ever wanted to share it with me. I was singing the wrong key, but... It was still lovely, though.

God, what a great song, and it's a pleasure to hear you sing it. You have a pretty big range, right? That was, like, really deep at the end. Yeah. I mean, down low in the keyboard. I'm a bass baritone with tenor tendencies, I sort of like to say. That sounds dangerous. You know, as it came out, my mouth, I thought, yes, that's probably the wrong way to put it.

So did that make you flexible in what kind of singing parts you got, that you had, like, the bass and the tenor tendencies? Yes, yes. By the time we got to Porgy and Porgie and Best, that's in my middle range, but... Were you Crown or Porgy? I was Porgy. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. I liked...

I loved that. Well, Bessie, who is my woman now? It's beautiful. I'm not going to sing that one, Terry. That's a hard one. How is being black in London different from being black in New York or other places that you'd been to in the U.S.? Let's go back to why I came to England. I can address that particular question through things.

theater. Okay? What England had to offer, the way I feel I was successful in England, was first of all because I was an American. Secondly, because I was a black American, and because the culture of America concerning entertainers in theater and in musicals is something that is already part of our culture, of the American culture. In England, people of color here, coming from the Caribbean or coming from Africa, do not have that same sensibility in theater, particularly at that particular point in time, in musicals. So it was, to a large degree, it was easier for me than my Caribbean or my Caribbean or, African counterpart to get the same roles.

Do you understand what I'm saying? I understand exactly what you're saying. Yeah, I don't think musicals are like a big tradition in Jamaica. No. Neither are they in England. But a pantomime is, yes, that's there. Musicals are big in England. Yes, they are now.

Now they are. They weren't then? Well, they weren't, not for any, not for people of color. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes. Not for people of color at all. And because the dynamic, the political dynamic had to change to a large degree, I think that I was here to help facilitate that change or that acceptance.

It was a musical called Bubbling Brown Sugar that came in 1978, I think, to London. It was a huge, huge success. a cast of, I think, about 38, 38 black dancers, singers, and three white dancers and singers. And the story is basically, we take them on a tour of what Harlem was like during the Renaissance and during the heyday of Harlem. You know, and so it was a kind of show that you had to act,

sing, dance, you know, do comedy, everything. And it's the first time, I think, that that generation had been introduced to this quality of performance, particularly by a black company. What songs did you sing in Bubbling Brown Sugar? I sang, um, sophisticated ladies. Yes. I sang. The Ellington's...

George... Yeah, the Ellington. Gosh, yes. That also has some unusual intervals in it. Absolutely. I get them, darling. I get them, believe me. A few bars?

They say, Into your early life, romance came. And in this... heart of yours burnt a flame a flame that flickered one day and died away That's really nice

I would have thought that Lester Freeman could sing like that You wrote, co-wrote a musical And co-starred in the original production It's called Five Guys Name Moe. It originated in London. But then it moved to Broadway, and it was a huge success. And I never saw it, but I always assumed it was based on 60s harmony groups like the jazz-oriented four freshmen or the more folk-oriented, the Brothers Four, or the very middle of the road, the four preps.

But it's actually like Louis Jordan's songs. and they're kind of like R&B swing songs, like jump songs. What was the origin of the idea? The origin was back in 85 when I was in Sheffield doing Carmen Jones. I had a nine-hour ride from there on a Saturday night to my home in the southern part of England, and I would listen to Louis Jordan. and I had done quite a few of these reviews with a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man named Ned Sharon

and his co-writer Carol Brahms. And so when I'm listening to Louis's songs, each one of them is a vignette within itself. and he always came with a little, with a moral at the end of the, at the end of the song. And some of these songs seem to be really talking to me. So I decided to let them talk to me.

So I got as many songs of his that I could and strung them together loosely in a storyline. And it starts, I mean, just when you think about the song Five Guys Name Moe is the perfect entrance or the perfect preface to the story.

Let me tell you a story from way back. Truck on down and dig me Jack. There's Big Mo. There's Little Mo. There's Forad Mo. There's No Mo. And then there's Eat Mo. And so just the lyrics themselves introduce the characters

and the rest is history, basically. Yeah. I'm not on the cast album of five guys named Mo singing Azurete, which was Foride Mo's song because I had slipped a disc. And I was out of the show when they were recording that. That's a shame. Believe me, it's a shame. It hurts you more than it hurts me. Yes, yes. And actually, my back is beginning to ache now in sympathy, too. You know, so we talked about your singing in musicals in London,

but you also had a small background vocal part in the 1977 hit Boogie Nights by Heat Wave. Which part is you? The bass part? Got to keep on dancing, keep on dancing, that part. You know, you're very sneaky there, Terry. Come on. I got your number. But even before that, there's a better one.

Joan Armitrating had a hit with a song called Love and Affection. And you're on that too. Yes, that was the first. That was 76, that one. And your part is? Oh, give me a lover. How did you get to be on that? When I came to England and I was signed as a singer-songwriter,

with Essex Music in 73, Joan was also there, and we met there. She was part of a vocal duet group. And we would see each other, and we just got to know each other. She was a sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet person. And she adopted me as her younger brother. She said, I always reminded her of him,

and we just stayed friends. And one day she called up and said, would you come in and do some backing vocals? So she didn't even have to ask, you know, if she said, would you, I'd have jumped. Like, how high? So why don't we hear that track and you singing bass on it? With friends, I still feel so insecure. Just take my hand. No conversation.

No way. Good night. We'll give me a love. Just sing me another love someone this time with a middle of the kids. As my guest, singing, sing, and sing, you know that's what I'm like. As my guest, Clark Peters singing the bass part on Joan Armitrating's Love and Affection.

Let me reintroduce you because we need to take another short break here. My guest is Clark Peters. He's currently one of the stars of the Netflix series, The Burroughs. He was one of the stars of The Wire and one of the stars of Spike Lee's, 20 film to five floods. We'll be right back after a break. This is fresh air. So you grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. Would you describe the neighborhood? Yeah. My neighborhood was brilliant. There must have been 15 children on those three blocks.

Across the street for me was an Irish family. Next door to us was. a German carpenter, master carpenter, Mr. Fink. Next door to me was a family from Columbia. They had two daughters. There was a family from the South, and they had two boys who were baseball players. You know, gosh. So the whole, it was a community. It was, it was, gosh, it was everybody.

It was everybody. And I was introduced to that coming from New York. coming from the projects in New York, which was predominantly black and Latin, to this multicultural block within four blocks of us. We had the United Nations. What changed in your family's financial life

that precipitated the move? My father, getting a job and being promoted to the advertising manager for a company called HomeLight. They were upwardly mobile, I guess, is the word that was bandered about then. How old were you when you moved?

I was seven. What borough? Harlem. Yeah. Your father was a commercial artist. Did he take you to museums? Yeah, he did. And particularly in the early 60s,

when the Egyptian exhibition came through New York. Oh, that was a big deal. Yeah, yeah, it was. We spent a lot of time there. And my mother's sister, Ruth, she always lived. She always made sure she lived near a center of culture. So if it was not the New York Museum, it was the Brooklyn Museum or the botanical gardens. You know, we're always exposed to things like that.

Part of your family is of Native American descent. And when you played an Indian chief on Trameh, did you relate to that role? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. It resonated with me deeper than I could have ever expected, and particularly when meeting them and talking with some of the older people who understood the history, because it's the history of dark-skinned Indians who were marginalized by Hollywood are alive and well in New Orleans. and you can see their pageantry, that is not something that came with the wild bill shows after the Civil War. There are accounts of people traveling from New England in the 17th century, going to New Orleans and seeing people of color dressing up with beads and shells and pine cones and whatever they could find, you know, as part of their ritual. You know, so it's a history worthwhile looking at, and it's a place to definitely go and experience. what the Mardi Gras Indians, as they call them,

have to have to offer America and the American culture. Clark Peters, I have so enjoyed talking with you and hearing you sing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. We'll catch you the next time around, eh? Yes. All right. Be well. And you.

Clark Peters is one of the stars of the new Netflix series, The Burroughs. After we take a short break, TV critic David Bioncule will review the new series, Cape Fear. This is fresh air. Cape Fear, based on the 1957 novel by John D. MacDonald, already has inspired two intense films about an ex-convict terrorizing his former attorney. Now there's a new 10-part mini-series from Apple TV, which premieres its first two episodes tomorrow. Our TV critic, David Bioncouli, has this review.

The first Cape Fear movie was in 1962, starring Robert Mitchum as ex-convict Max Katie and Gregory Peck as attorney Sam Bowden. Peck's Sam was heroic and strong, but Mitchum's ex-con was a playful, vengeful force of nature. One of the most powerful scenes in that movie was when Katie cornered Sam's wife, played by Polly Bergen in a kitchen, grabbed and crushed a raw egg, then smeared it across her exposed shoulders as she shuddered with fear. And earlier, when he first tracks down Sam at a bar, he sits next to Sam and enjoys making him uncomfortable. You going to buy me a drink? Waiter. That'll be double waiter.

Twelve-year-old. My rich cousin here says nothing's too good fool, Max. How much do you want, Katie? How's that again? You hurt me. I said, how much do you want? Castle, you've got to forgive me. I'm a little slower after my first drink.

I assume we're talking about dough, is that right? That's right. Well, that's certainly his heart woman. The poor ex-convict comes to a new town looking for a fresh start, and one of the leading citizens steps right out and offers him financial help. That's enough to renew your faith in human nature. Mitchum's very verbal sociopath has provided the template for dozens of movie and TV predators since. Those would include, most prominently, the eccentric killers,

played by Havier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, and Billy Bob Thornton in the first season of TV's Fargo. And Robert De Niro, of course, who played Max Cady in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear, opposite Nick Nolte as the defense attorney. At their first encounter after Katie's release, Sam tries to talk tough, but it's De Niro as Katie,

who's obviously in control and loving it. Look, Mr. Gey, I realized that you suffer. I mean, I understand your problem, but, I mean, why me? Look, I was your lawyer. I defended you. I mean, why not badger the DA or the judge? Badger! Yeah, well, why not then?

Badger. Best I remember, they was just doing right by their jobs. Oh, I didn't do my job. Is that right? Look, I pleaded you out to a lesser occluded offense. You could have gotten rape instead of battery. Oh, I'd have been up for parole either way in seven years. to the Georgia Penal Code.

Rape is a capital offense. I mean, you know, you could have gotten life, you could be sitting on death road right now. The most gripping and uncomfortable scene in that version, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, may have been the moment in which De Niro's Katie is alone with Sam's teenage daughter, played by Juliet Lewis, and approaches her with a mix of charisma and menace. Scorsese, in his Cape Fear remake, kept Katie as evil as before, but made Sam a much less noble protagonist. And that's why I suspect Scorsese has returned as an executive producer, along with Stephen Spielberg, to present this new expanded version of Cape Fear. This time,

the shades of gray are everywhere you look. Nick Antoska, who created and oversaw this new Apple TV miniseries, has made some bold choices from the start, beginning with the casting and the primary characters. In the two movies, Sam's wife and family were targeted. by Katie purely to get revenge on Sam. In this news story, the main characters are renamed Tom and Anna, and Tom's wife Anna was Katie's defense attorney, and Tom was the prosecutor. It puts her in the narrative more centrally and pays off.

Amy Adams plays Anna, and Patrick Wilson plays Tom. They're really, really good, and play their parts with shifting layers of innocence and guilt. And playing Max Katie? It's none other than Javier Bardem, who already has embodied one world-class sociopath. Here he comes again. Why are you here? What?

What's funny him? No, I'm sorry. It's just that I asked the same question every day for 17 years. Why am I here? Why are you here tonight? Because I wanted to see you both. I wanted to see you and you, you're going to say right about you, your good works, and you're a professional success.

And we're off. Apple TV provided eight of the ten episodes for preview, so I don't know how this Cape Fear ends. But I know how cleverly it updates and expands the story. It's set in today's world, so there are cell phones, podcasters, ride shares, catfishing, and public shaming, all of which figure into the plot. There are flashbacks, not only to Katie's prison years, but to Tom's childhood, which is similarly

fleshed out. And best of all, major new supporting characters are presented, some which inherit the stalking behaviors exhibited by Katie in the film versions. And those films are echoed with respect. Just as Scorsese found room for Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum to appear as other characters in his 1991 remake, this new Cape Fear pulls the same trick by casting someone from Scorsese's film. Bar Dem is riveting here, but he's by no means the only reason to watch. The story may be familiar, but this new Cape Fear rolls out one surprise after another. Some scenes are scary, some are violent, and some are creepy. And part of the suspense in this new adaptation is figuring out who the creeps really are, and where the evil really lies.

David B. and Cooley reviewed the new Apple TV series, Cape Fear. If you'd like to catch up on fresh air interviews you missed, like our interviews with Elizabeth Pryor about being Richard Pryor's daughter, or Maggie O'Farrell, the author of the novel Hamlet, who has a new novel, check out our podcast. You'll find lots of fresh air interviews. And to find out what's happening behind the scenes of our show and get our producers' recommendations for what to watch, read, and read.

and listen to, subscribe to our free newsletter at wh-h-y-y-dot-org slash fresh air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorock, Anne-Marie Boldenato, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. In Jus and Yacundi directed today's show, our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.