Samuel L. Jackson & Walter Mosley Stayed Course For A Decade To Make ‘Last Days of Ptolemy Grey’ As TV Series: ‘Movies Are Short Stories; This Is A Novel” – Contenders TV
deadline.comWhen it came to bringing The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey from the pages of Walter Mosley’s novel to screens on Apple TV+, the writer and star Samuel L.
Jackson agree that the long haul – with over a decade of development – due to their commitment to telling the epic story through the long form of television – was worth the wait.Contenders TV — Deadline’s Complete Coverage“Getting some finally done, bringing it to fruition, is an amazing feat, especially something that was this personal for me,” Jackson said during Deadline’s Contenders Television panel spotlighting the miniseries, noting that both he and Mosley had experienced their own elderly parents’ struggles with mental decline, similar to the titular character. “It’s rewarding and comforting.”“Sometimes you’re haunted by things,” Jackson said of previous unrealized projects. “There have been scripts that I read over the years that didn’t get done, and then they go back, and they come back and go again and you don’t get to do them.“But this was me beating on people’s doors, pushing them and prodding them and hoping that they would do it,” he continued, noting how he used all the leverage his high profile in Hollywood provided. “And I had the same problem with [1997’s] Eve’s Bayou – it took about 10 years to get that done.
So it happens. But when it happens, it’s so satisfying, and it’s so amazing to get that particular performance thing out of you.
And I wasn’t empty when it was done; I was full because of all the wonderful people that came into it that helped make it what it’s become.”Deadline Contenders Television Arrivals – Day 2 Photo GalleryMosley agreed. “It takes a long time to make anything, especially if you want to make something that means something to
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