Clifton Powell is unapologetically dropping the name of the agent who he alleges fired him for taking a role in the 2005 musical “The Gospel.”
“My agent at the time, and I’ll say his name, his name is Jeff Witjas at APA,” the veteran actor told “The Art of Dialogue” last week on YouTube. “He called me and said, ‘You’re doing another one of those little Black movies?’ I said, ‘You’re damn right. I got a family to feed’ and hung up the telephone on his ass and they let me go.”
Witjas did not respond immediately Friday to The Times’ request for comment.
One of Hollywood’s famous “Oh, that guy” character actors is headed toward 300 credits in his prolific career. Powell, 69, has appeared in Oscar-winning films like the 2004 biopic “Ray,” critically acclaimed films like the 1993 crime drama “Menace II Society” and box office juggernauts like the 1998 buddy-cop comedy “Rush Hour.”
Throughout his career, Powell said he doesn’t let his representation dictate the projects he takes. When picking his projects, the actor follows advice given to him by Jamie Foxx years ago.
“He said, ‘Clif Powell, keep one foot in…’ that means keep one foot in with your people and I’m always going to be with the people, because African Americans, and young white kids, young Asians, Latinos and women have made me a household name.”
Powell said his mentality has paid dividends. The director of “The Gospel” later cast him in Peacock’s critically hailed crime drama “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist.”
His hiccup with a top acting agency did not slow down his career. Based on his IMDb page, Powell has remained a working actor and kept his family well fed. But there are certain roles his personal boundaries have ruled out: gay roles.
“It’s not militant. It’s just that I’m — certain things I’m just not comfortable with,” Powell said.
One role that did fall within his zone of comfort was a part in 2Pac’s dystopian music video for “California Love,” where his character is introduced as “Monster” by a high-pitched Chris Tucker.
“A lot of people still don’t know that’s me … everybody thinks that’s George Clinton,” Powell said on “The Art of Dialogue.”
So shout his name next time the video plays, instead of saying “That’s the guy from ‘Rush Hour.’” That guy’s name is Clifton Powell.
In “Task,” premiering Sunday on HBO, Brad Ingelsby, creator of the 2021 miniseries “Mare of Easttown,” which introduced the wider world to Wawa and the Delco accent, returns with another tale of crime and family in the rural-suburban wilds west of Philadelphia. Where women were at the center of “Mare,” men are the subject here — a cop and a criminal, symmetrically arranged — messed-up middle-aged single fathers who care about their kids.
Both have been loaded with tragedy. Robbie (Tom Pelphrey), whose wife took off a year before, has a much-missed dead brother in whose house he’s living with his two kids and young adult niece (Emilia Jones as Maeve, a secret hero); he’s a garbage collector with a sideline in robbing drug houses, which he identifies through their trash. This routine has been successful enough that he and his partner, fellow trashman Cliff (Raúl Castillo), have drawn the attention of the authorities.
FBI agent Tom (Mark Ruffalo) has a dead wife (Mireille Enos, seen briefly in flashback), a son in jail he can’t bring himself to visit and a semi-estranged adult daughter (Phoebe Fox); on leave from field work, he’s been manning the agency table at job fairs. That changes when his boss (Martha Plimpton), much to his displeasure, calls him back as a substitute to lead a task force into the drug house robberies, already assembled by his predecessor from other branches of law enforcement. There’s Lizzie (Alison Oliver), young and distractable; Aleah (Thuso Mbedu), terse and focused; and Anthony (Fabien Frankel), loose and Italian.
It’s clear from the guns that both sides pack, and the fact that Robbie has been stealing from criminals — notably a drug-dealing motorcycle gang, the Dark Hearts, which has its own explosive internal business — that something is going to go fatally wrong sooner or later. (If that’s a spoiler, you are blessed with a special brand of naivete.) The bikers, who are not at all nice, though painted with some recognizably human qualities — represented primarily by Jamie McShane as Perry and Sam Keeley as Jayson — are the usual screen collection of exclusively good-looking men and women, though to be fair, this is true of Tom’s team too — Tom perhaps excepted. (Ruffalo put on weight for the role, and wants you to notice.)
In “Task,” Robbie (Tom Pelphrey) is a single father who steals from other criminals.
(Peter Kramer / HBO)
Indeed, the predominant experience of watching “Task” is waiting for the next terrible thing to happen, which may be called suspense or dramatic tension, but in the event makes for an often depressing watch, especially since the safety (physical, psychological) of young children is involved. (That can feel a little cheap, dramaturgically, like endangering a kitten, but it works.) One is grateful for anything relatively ordinary — Lizzie and Anthony dancing in a bar, Tom’s younger daughter, Emily (Silvia Dionicio) connecting with a co-worker at the custard ice stand. (Another item for the regional reference bucket.)
In the compare-and-contrast structure of the series, we learn that Robbie, though he is a fount of bad decisions, is the more optimistic, proactive of the two characters — he has a dream, in the form of a brochure, regarding a Canadian island, where he would like to spirit his family away. (He’s doing the crime to afford it.) He’s interested enough in finding “a life companion” to open a dating app. Tom, who had been a priest for eight years before losing the spirit and joining the FBI, still in mourning for his wife, drinks too much, is packing a paunch and can’t connect with Emily, the only family member left in the house.
Both have connections to nature. Tom, who grows vegetables, is a birdwatcher; Robbie keeps chickens. Both are essentially tenderhearted, which is perhaps not the most practical quality for their professions, but necessary for the story — we need to like them. They’re like one and a half sides of the same coin.
In among the criminal antics and police work is a lot of talk about life and death and God, guilt and forgiveness. Ingelsby thinks big. The title to one episode, “Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing There Is a River,” paraphrases the 13th century Persian poet Rumi, and water is a motif — diving into it, swimming in it, hanging around by it. Birds, too, which show up in random shots and, like the lakes and rivers, function as a sort of psychic relief for the viewer and metaphors for the story. When Tom, speaking to Robbie, identifies a certain bird as a “vagrant … a bird that strayed outside its normal range, strayed so far that it’s forgotten how to find its way home,” that is not really about birds. The writing can be a little on the nose, but better a violent story with ideas than one with none.
For all my reservations when it comes to this sort of drama, it’s very well made and very well acted, and, where many crime stories settle for sensational nihilism, “Task” does want to leave you feeling … pretty good. Not horrible. Hopeful. I trust that hasn’t spoiled it for you.
The countdown is almost over: The 2025 Emmy nominations will be announced this morning.
Harvey Guillén, the actor who played the sole human roommate in a vampire household on FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” for six seasons, and Netflix’s “Running Point” star and real-life knowledgeable sports fan Brenda Song will be on hand to make the announcement live from the Television Academy’s Wolf Theatre along with academy chair Cris Abrego. The nominations will be streamed live starting at 8:30 a.m. PT on the Television Academy website and social media channels.
As a teaser, the nominations for talk series and reality competition program were announced at 4:47 a.m. PT live on “CBS Mornings.”
The 77th Emmy Awards will be held on Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. The live telecast will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which honors the artistic and technical achievements as well as some performance categories, will be held on Sept. 6 and 7, then edited to air Sept. 13 on FXX.
Talk series
“The Daily Show” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”
Reality competition program
“The Amazing Race” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” “Survivor” “Top Chef” “The Traitors”
