“Moonlight” tells the story of an African-American boy named Chiron at three separate stages of his life: as a bullied kid in an inner-city Miami neighborhood, as a still-bullied closeted gay teenager and as a young adult. Chiron is played by three separate actors — Alex Hibbert, at age 9; Ashton Sanders during his teens and newcomer Trevante Rhodes as an adult.
In discussing the film (opening Friday), both Rhodes and Andre Holland, who portrays the adult Chiron’s friend Kevin, agreed they were overwhelmed when they first read the “Moonlight” screenplay, based on a play by Tarell McCraney, an ensemble member at Chicago’s Steppenwolf theater company.
“It hit my heart,” said Holland, whose character shares Chiron’s first sexual experience when both are teenagers. McCraney, he said, “has been a friend of mine for about 10 years, and I’ve done a bunch of his plays in the theater — and each and every one of them have hit my heart. They always feel like they are written about my family. So doing this film was the easiest ‘yes’ I’ve ever given to a project.”
Rhodes shared his enthusiasm, saying, “Reading the script tugged at my heart so heavily because I’ve felt like I’ve known Chiron in real life.”
Interestingly, neither got to meet the younger actors who played Chiron.
“I absolutely wanted to know what the younger ‘me’s’ were doing,” said Holland, “but Barry [Jenkins, the director] was adamant about specifying that this part of the chapter was for THIS part of the chapter. Everything was segmented in a certain way, and he wanted us to stay true to our segment of the film.”
Rhodes tried to arrange a meeting, “but Barry was very insistent that that didn’t happen — even when I showed up on set looking for those boys,” the actor said with a laugh. “In retrospect it was a very cool thing to do, because in a subtle way it shows a story about the fact we’re always reinventing ourselves as life goes on.”
In an added twist, Rhodes and Holland had never met until they showed up to film the last scenes in the movie, where they reconnect as potential lovers. They immediately bonded and had instant chemistry on the set.
“For Kevin, he’s trying to figure out who Chiron is now,” Holland said. “He’s changed so totally from when they last saw each other as kids. So the fact I was meeting Trevante for the first time when we shot those scenes kind of helped me as an actor to convey that sense of wondering. That affected the way we listened to each other as we acted the scenes.”
At the end of the day, Rhodes hope that audiences take away the knowledge that “love, is love, is love — regardless of your gender, or who you love, or regardless of your skin color. It’s all the same. It’s the realization that the only thing that drives us is love.”
Best known as a recording artist, Janelle Monae gets to play her first major film role in “Moonlight.” She was cast as Teresa, the girlfriend of a drug dealer who becomes a father-like figure and mentor to young Chiron.
“I grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kansas,” Monae said. “My grandmother helped raise me. I had cousins who sold drugs. I had cousins who were dealing with sexual identity. So, I knew Teresa. In many ways, Teresa was me. You know, that cousin that you can go to for advice who is not judgmental. She’s there to listen. So, when I was preparing to play Teresa, I connected back to the Janelle Robinson from Kansas City who would understand how to speak to this young boy who was struggling.”
Mahershala Ali, who plays that kind-hearted drug dealer Juan in the film, also felt a strong, personal connection to the story like his co-stars. “I could totally relate to him. I knew people — and know people today — who are in that life [of drug dealing], but who are also good people in another way. It’s just that people have different options in life, dependent on your circumstances, and where you were born and grow up. Environment sets the tone for so many people in this country.”
Andre Holland is scheduled to attend a Chicago International Film Festival screening of “Moonlight” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at AMC River East 21, along with director Barry Jenkins, writer Tarell McCraney and co-star Naomi Harris.
