With 10 Emmy nominations, three wins and iconic rolls in multiple hit series, Sterling K. Brown is one of the most talented and prolific actors on television. In Paradise, currently streaming on Hulu, Brown, perhaps best known for the role of Randall Pearson in the Emmy-winning ensemble drama This Is Us, steps to the top of the call sheet to play Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent who leads the investigation of a U.S. president’s murder. The project reunites him with This Is Us creator and showrunner Dan Fogelman. Emmy talks to Brown and Fogelman about the action-packed series keeping viewers on the edge of their seats. The award-winning official publication of the Television Academy is on sale March 14.
Brown was initially reluctant to return to series television as he had already experienced the grueling hours and long stretches away from his young sons, whom he calls “the center of my world.” Only one person could persuade him to return. “Dan,” Brown says. “Dan asked me.” While he admits to having intentionally distanced himself from Randall, the character that won him an Emmy in 2017 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Brown loved the script for Fogelman’s innovative new series.
Paradise is a sci-fi political thriller set in a pseudo-utopia where tech billionaire Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) has constructed an entire town underground as a sanctuary from a climate catastrophe. In the cover story “This Is His," Brown says, “While our world is fictional and bears no resemblance to anyone, there’s obviously a relationship between politics and capitalism with undue influence of the wealthy over our political agendas. That’s something that bears out in the world and in the world of Paradise.”
The producers shaped the fictional world based on consultations with futurists, architects and environmental experts. “We talked to an unending amount of people,” Fogelman says. “We had a sociologist write a 25-page dissertation on the dos and don’ts if you were preparing for this. What kind of government would be effective, what rule of law? There’s stuff you wouldn’t even see as a viewer that [informs] how the city was created.”
Brown’s preparation for the role of Xavier included observing Secret Service agents and guards to get inside the minds of people who are always ready to defend and protect. “I’d just roll up on a security [guard], like, ‘What’s up, bro? Listen, I need to know where you keep your hands, what the thought process is. What sets your antennae off?’ Playing someone who’s constantly on guard is a different energy than anybody else I played before.”
Co-star James Marsden, who plays Xavier’s boss, President Cal Bradford, raves about Brown’s performance. “Once [Dan] told me Sterling was involved and most of my scenes were going to be with him, that was a huge plus,” Marsden says. “There’s something in him that connects him to the material, and you can tell how eager he is to tell that story. Actors like Sterling just make you better. Something happens once the cameras start rolling, and you empathize with him. There’s a raw grit to his nature and his performances that just make it so exciting to watch him.”
As he takes on this new challenge, Brown relishes the trajectory of his acting career. “I’m trying to be here for at least 100 years,” he says. “This feels, for me, at 48, a natural progression that doesn’t feel overwhelming. It might have, had all this happened earlier. But God’s timing is the right timing. I’m where I’m supposed to be right now.”
Additional feature highlights from the new issue include:
When Netflix drama Squid Game debuted in 2021, it shattered streaming records and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. In “Back in the Game,” the show’s cast and crew look back at the second season as they gear up for the highly anticipated third and final installment.
The creative team behind the Emmy Award-winning series ER have come together for The Pitt, a high-intensity medical drama set in a Pittsburgh emergency room. In “Trauma Bond,” star, writer and executive producer Noah Wyle, together with showrunner, director and executive producer John Wells and creator and executive producer R. Scott Gemmill talk to emmy about their reunion and creating a new road map for the series that serves a contemporary audience.
In “New Direction,” emmy talks to actress Tichina Arnold about her new role behind the camera on The Neighborhood. In her seventh season as Tina Butler on the CBS sitcom, Arnold directed her first episode.
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