In 2020, Prime Video picked up I’m a Virgo, a new, “absurdist, fantastical ride” and satirical series from Sorry to Bother You director, Boots Riley. Starring Emmy Award-winner Jharrel Jerome (When They See Us) as a 13-foot-tall man living in Oakland, California, the 7-episode series’ details are still being kept close to Riley’s chest. He isn’t imparting too much of the plot, but he does share with us some of what has gone into the making of the show.

While at the Sundance Film Festival, Boots Riley visited the Collider Studio presented by Saratoga Spring Water in Park City, and spoke with Editor-in-Chief, Steve Weintraub, about I’m a Virgo ahead of its world premiere at South by Southwest. He kept the series’ explanation vague, but was forthcoming about the amazing talent attached to the project, particularly with Jerome’s performance. In addition to the Moonlight star, I’m a Virgo will feature an ensemble cast that includes Mike Epps, Carmen Ejogo, Walton Goggins, Kara Young, Brett Gray, and more.

During his interview, Riley spoke about Tune-Yards and his band, The Coup, who provide the score and soundtrack to I’m a Virgo. He also discusses what he called his “cinematic album” that will add three more features to the director’s filmography, future cameos with LaKeith Stanfield and Elijah Wood, and talks about the use of practical effects versus CGI when filming his 13-foot protagonist, and how that decision has affected the storyboarding of this carefully crafted series. For all the details on I’m a Virgo, you can watch the interview in the player above, or read the full transcript below.

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Image via Photagonist

COLLIDER: I'm here with Boots Riley who has an upcoming Prime Video series that is going to be coming out – I actually don't know when it's coming out, when is it coming out? You can’t say?

BOOTS RILEY: [Shakes head] But, we are premiering it at a different festival, South by Southwest. So you'll start hearing people's reactions to that then.

I have a ton of questions about this series, but for people that don't know your work – and you have done a lot of work in your career – where do you want people starting? Do you want them to start with the feature you made?

RILEY: I think that's a good entry point, is the feature, and then they can go listen to an album called Pick a Bigger Weapon. They can then go to an album called Genocide & Juice. You know, there's a lot. That's why I made the movie, that's a thing you can sit down and watch, and also, we did the soundtrack to it too. Tune-Yards did the score, but [The Coup] did the soundtrack. Tune-Yards is doing the score to my TV show, as well.

Let's jump into it. It's called I'm a Virgo, and how do you describe it?

RILEY: So it's an absurdist, fantastical ride with a 13-foot-tall Black man who lives in Oakland California. It's called I'm a Virgo. That's what's important to him about himself. You see a giant Black man walking down the street, to a lot of people, that's not important to them, the fact that he's a Virgo, but that's what's important to him. Jharrel Jerome does an amazing job, and people are going to be looking at him with different eyes after this one.

We've got, also, Walton Goggins, Mike Epps, Carmen, Ejogo, and some other folks that people will see as discoveries; Kara Young, Brett Gray, which a lot of people under the age of 20 won't think is a discovery, but a lot of people. They're all doing amazing jobs. Then we even have a lot of really cool cameos from Kendrick Sampson, Elijah Wood, LaKeith [Stanfield]. I mean, it's just packed full of a lot of cool shit. I could keep going. I'm going to forget people.

I would imagine after Sorry to Bother You that a lot of people were calling, or wanted meetings with you, to discuss, “What do you want to do next?” So, what was it about this story that said, “This is what I want to do next.”?

RILEY: I had this idea, and three other movies and they're all going, this is just the one that's coming out first. A lot of times you'll write stuff and it's really about things lining up in time. So, basically, I'm making what I'm calling a cinematic album of which Sorry to Bother You is the first single, and Season 1 of I'm a Virgo is the second one, and then my other three movies go into that. So, it's all part of a larger plan. It's not one universe, these movies, but it's kind of a weird view from my point of the world.

Making a feature is a lot different than making a television series. So, did you enjoy the experience of making TV in a way that's like, “Wow, I really want to do more TV now that I've experienced that.”? Because it’s completely different.

RILEY: It's very different. It's very different. I think I'm a fan of stories that end, so TV is not necessarily what I want to stay in, but the way that we're doing this is something that is different than that. I really don't like the shows where they just keep you hooked, and keep you going just to keep you going. After a while you feel like, “Oh, you really don't care what you're saying as long as I watch the next time.” As a viewer, I feel insulted by that, and so I don't want to make that kind of stuff. I think with a TV show there's a lot more bureaucracy to the process that I don't get in feature films. You know, it's a different animal. I don't think it has to be, but that's just the way it's set up.

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Image via Photagonist

If I can ask, how many episodes is I'm a Virgo?

RILEY: It's seven.

Was that a number that you came up with based on story?

RILEY: I love the number seven. I like it upside down, and I like the way it looks, I like the angle that it makes, and so I was like, “Whatever I do, it's going to be seven.” I’m just joking. No, no, I mean, I don't come up with the number. It’s just what it ends up being.

Sometimes the studio will say, “We're interested in six episodes,” but the story dictates I want to do seven.

RILEY: You're more experienced at that than me because I don't know. This is my first time doing a TV show, and I try to stay ignorant to certain things because my brain… You know, like Sherlock Holmes, he doesn't let every piece of information into his head.

Your main protagonist, your character, is 13 feet tall. What is it like trying to pull that off?

RILEY: That's part of the answer to your first question is, “why this one first?” We did most of the stuff practically, meaning forced perspective, puppets, we also have stop-motion in the show. We have all kinds of stuff, and so I want to make the process fun. And now, that being said, that doesn't mean there's no VFX in it, but there's not really any CGI. There might be a couple of little things, but I really feel like with CGI you can have a CGI skyscraper that stands up, walks over, and takes a shit, and it wouldn't be amazing, right? And that should be amazing, and that's why you have to use practical things so that when that building takes a shit you're like, “I feel that, I see the textures,” and all that kind of stuff.

With this, I had to do everything in two scales, right? We had to build a half-scale-this, a full-scale-that, and all this kind of stuff. I don't want to get too much into how the sausage is made until people see it because I don't want everyone thinking about that, and that's the amazing thing about it is that you see it and you just feel the difference. You don't necessarily like, “Oh I see that they did this, and I see that they did that.”

Listen, I commend you because practical is the way to go all the time. Because you believe it, you see it.

RILEY: It ends up taking a lot more preparation to do that. So in order to do this for the budget that we needed to we had to really plan. We had to storyboard almost everything, almost the whole show, beforehand so that we could be like, “This is what we have to build. These are the lenses we're gonna need…” All these sorts of things. Because if we were, say, another show on the same network that got a billion dollars as a budget, then we could just do it much faster, and just build everything both sizes, and then we wouldn't have to prep as much, we could just go out to lunch and then start shooting.

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Image via Photagonist

I actually think that preparation probably adds a lot, makes you really think about every shot, and do you really need it?

RILEY: Exactly.

You mentioned you're working on other features. As a big fan of your first feature –

RILEY: I can't talk about it, but if you're a big fan of the first feature, same guys making this show, right? I'm always looking for ways to talk shit, and that's the most important thing to me. I want to say the shit I'm going to say, and whether it's here with you, or doing music on stage, or film, or TV, it's the vehicle. I really think that people have to have a passion, something they care about more than they care about making the art. Because that's the thing that drives you, and helps you decide, “What are the shots I'm going to get, is this good? Is this important?” Otherwise, you'll be asking everybody else. You still ask everybody else, but you need your own divination rods.

100%. My thing was really, do you think you'll be in front of cameras this year?

RILEY: In front of cameras?

Meaning like, you think you'll be filming your next movie this year?

RILEY: Oh yeah, yeah, but if I get in front of it, I mess up the shot.

You know what, I said it wrong, but what I'm saying is, I'm looking forward to I'm a Virgo, and I'm also looking forward to what you're going to do next.

RILEY: We will be shooting other stuff this year.

Listen man, I cannot wait to see it, sincerely, and I hope to be at SXSW to be able to see it when it plays there.

RILEY: I'll tell you this, whatever you think it is, it's a little bit crazier than that. Now imagine that, then this just a tiny bit crazier than that.

Special thanks to our 2023 partners at Sundance including presenting partner Saratoga Spring Water and supporting partners Marbl Toronto, EMFACE, Sommsation, Hendrick’s Gin, Stella Artois, MOU Footwear, and the all-electric vehicle, Fisker Ocean.