[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Black Box.]
Black Box, a self-contained entry in Amazon's Welcome to the Blumhouse series of genre films, is quite the startling debut from director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr. Playing a little like Christopher Nolan's take on a cyberpunk thriller, Black Box stars Mamoudou Athie as a father suffering from a traumatic car accident that robbed him of his wife and his memory. When an experimental doctor played by Phylicia Rashad promises she can enter his subconscious and find the truth to who he is, an unraveling of identity and consciousness threatens everyone's future.
I was lucky enough to speak with Rashad on a one-on-one Zoom call during a press junket for Black Box. We chatted about how an actor authentically delivers technologically and medically intimidating jargon, the intersection between this film and her theater-work, the joys and cheeky conversations of working with a first-time filmmaker like Osei-Kuffour Jr., and much more. Plus, we get into her wonderful experience voice acting in Pixar's upcoming Soul, and her experience in the Creed franchise. She, um, also screamed "Spoilers!" at me, which was just delightful.
Check out our full interview with Rashad below. For more, here's the trailer for every Welcome to the Blumhouse entry.