Samuel L. Jackson stars as Frank Moten in Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist. The first three episodes of the series are currently streaming on Peacock and new episodes will be released every Thursday through October 10.
Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, based on the acclaimed iHeart true-crime podcast, follows the infamous story of how an armed robbery on the night of Muhammad Ali’s historic 1970 comeback fight changed not only one man’s life but ultimately transformed Atlanta into the “Black Mecca.” When a hustler named Chicken Man (Kevin Hart) hosts an afterparty to celebrate the fight with a guest list of the country’s wealthiest, the night ends with the most brazen criminal underworld heist in Atlanta’s history. Suspected of masterminding the crime, Chicken Man is hellbent on clearing his name but must convince his old adversary, J.D. Hudson (Don Cheadle), one of the first Black detectives in the city’s desegregated police force, who is tasked with bringing those responsible to justice.
“Working in Georgia is always a great joy for me and it makes me feel young because I’ve seen all these places and I’ve watched the city grow in such a way that Atlanta’s amazing to me now because it’s nothing like it was in 1970 when it actually happened. The reality of the things that are real that are there, the fight happened, Ali was there, those people got robbed, I know some of the people who got robbed and I know some people who were at that party, and my wife’s cousin was on the police force at the time,” he shared with me. “So there are a lot of real things and being able to take the reality of what’s there and add the fictional qualities that we bring to this story because we don’t actually know who actually did what or who got killed or how they got killed but to dramatize it in a specific way and to have all that knowledge to feed off of gives me a sort of advantage that a lot of people don’t have. But hopefully, people watching the series will feel like they’re in a place that’s real or that’s based in something that has a lot of truth in it.”
I was lucky enough to catch up with the actor to discuss how he chooses his projects, getting to see Atlanta grow as a city, and what he considered to be the key to his character.
Watch my interview below:
