Out this week on Netflix is Nemesis, the latest series from Power creator Courtney Kemp, created with Tani Marole. The series pits a criminal mastermind (played by Y’Lan Noel) against a detective (Matthew Law) on the streets of Los Angeles in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. It’s sleek, action-packed, and includes humor and heart. One of the more intriguing aspects of this puzzle is one of the series executive producers, the iconic Mario Van Peebles, who also directed the first two episodes, setting the foundation for this rowdy ride.
Bringing on Van Peebles isn’t just just about having a familiar veteran for headlines; it continues a working relationship between Van Peebles and Kemp that began with directing an episode of Power and continued with Van Peebles working on four episodes of Power Book III: Raising Kanan. In Van Peebles, Nemesis is getting the creative mind behind New Jack City, the gritty, NYC-based street tale that not only helped launch the acting careers of Ice-T and Chris Rock, but helped put Wesley Snipe on a lot of people’s radar, as well as being a major vehicle for bringing the sound of new jack swing across the country.
While New Jack City celebrated its 35th anniversary back in March, Nemesis hitting Netflix this week provides the perfect opportunity to link with Mario Van Peebles. He not only discusses his introduction to the world of Nemesis but also highlights the New Jack DNA within the Netflix series, the legacy of New Jack, and working with another legend, his father, Melvin Van Peebles.
Mario, thank you for taking the time out. In thinking about you regarding Nemesis and then realizing that it's been 35 years since the release of New Jack City, that was your first feature film, right?
I mean, I had been quietly directing for that. I had been directing Wiseguy with Ken Wahl, and 21 Jump Street. I did a bunch of those. And of course, I did my own show, Sonny Spoon.
When I did Heartbreak Ridge with Clint Eastwood, he said, "No one ever gets to be Flavor of the Month for 30 years.”
And you’re working on 35. How did the connection for Nemesis come about?
One of the things that I've learned as I've gotten younger over the years is don't just look at what people do, but look at how many times they've done it with the same folks. That tells you they're being invited back to the cinematic picnic, so they're probably doing something right. And that's important, because the Mario you see on Zoom is pretty much the Mario you would see on the set—with a little more energy, but it's the same cat—where sometimes you meet people, and it flips. So when you see people that are working with the same folks again and again, you know they're delivering on some level.
I had worked with Courtney a couple times, and so it was one of those cases of “sister's got stories, she's got gifts, she's a storyteller, she can run it.” And we just clicked. So we worked together a few times and then she called me up on this and said, “Listen, Tani and I want to get together. I know you. You got to meet Tani. "And this brother, every line of New Jack, every shot of Belly, we just vibed on a whole lot of stuff. And then, with the combination of him and Courtney together, was powerful. It's just a beautiful thing. You see all these Black folks in the kitchen, you're like, "Hey, what are we going to make?”
Was the conversation always, “we don't want to just have you direct two episodes, we want you to really be on [the team]?” When I see a new show come out and there's a particular name that's directing, it's almost like a table setting for what I'm going to expect for the show. And I feel like you kind of did that for Nemesis. Was that always the conversation?
We all came in with respect for each other, you know what I mean? So you'll see shades of what Courtney brings, definitely vibes that Tani brings, and vibes that I bring. But there were things in there, like the Halloween party, you saw what outfit he was wearing.
What I like is when you can watch something and, depending on your awareness, your consciousness, and how much you're on your phone, you go, “wait a minute, what is the movie that they're playing when she's giving him the information?” And you go, “oh wow, that's pops.” It gets meta because it's inside of inside, inside.
There are shades where you'll see at times where we played with the New Jacks and the Heats and the cat and the mouse of it all. And whenever you do a thing like this, there's a bit of a Western in it, too, in that the good guy [and] the bad guy have shades of each other. So, almost like flip sides of the same coin. You think of Wesley and Ice-T; in New Jack, Wesley wanted to play the cop. Ice-T didn't care much for cops. He wanted to play the gangster, and I wanted them to flip roles. They did. Play Nino Brown like you the man, like you're the Black Panther. And I said, “Ice-T, you play Scotty like you're the King of the Jungle, even the way you look with the dreads and everything, and you play that and bring all your street credibility to that role.”
The trick of New Jack, which in a gangster movie, you connect emotionally with where gangster... so if you watch Godfather, you watch two-and-a-half hours of a guy with family values who maybe cuts off a horse's head now and then. But in New Jack, I wanted them not to just connect with the gangster, because crack was a killer, [even] in our community today. I didn't want glorification. I couldn't just do Black Scarface. But I said, "well, what if you got New Jack cops to take down a New Jack?"
And then something that we did in New Jack, which I haven't really seen since, was not only connecting emotionally with the gangster and the cops, but with the victim. And that was key because the crime is not victimless. It affects our communities. So I said, "Who's going to play our victim?" We got between Martin Lawrence and Chris Rock, and we went with Chris. And so that was important because when we showed New Jack the first time, kids in the audience stood up and said, "Just say no to drugs, muthafucka!” [laughs]
One of the things when Courtney and Tani brought Nemesis to me was you see the truth of the gangster and the truth of the cop and then their families, and they're not just running around. They're really in love with each other at their houses and trying to make it work, you know what I mean?
You mentioned your leads in New Jack. Talk about going through those first episodes with Nemesis leads Matthew Law and Y’Lan Noel; were there conversations where you were trying to guide them? I mean, from what I've been reading, it seems like Y’Lan showed up as Coltrane.
Energetically, I think back to one of the few notes that Clint Eastwood gave me on Heartbreak Ridge. I had a very fiery character, and he said, "don't take my energy. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be ice to your fire. You do as much, go as far, boom, boom, boom, and I'll be the ice to your fire." I said, "OK, bet, you'll have to pull me back." And that was one of the things with Y’Lan was that he was sort of centered and zen and precise, and he's got to be because he's organizing major heists and he's got to run it like a general. Matthew Law's character, he's fire. He's on the other side, and he's bringing the heat. So there's a good, energetic tennis match going on, and both men are playing it. Their look, the optics are great. They’re two different kinds of brothers, you know what I mean? And one of the things that I thought was important and we worked on was making sure that on the cop side of the equation, we found the joy, too, like the joy with his son.
Think of New Jack City when I was walking on the beach, I was playing the sergeant, and I had the baby with me. Now, I had no kids. I borrowed someone's baby because I wanted to show how he would treat a baby versus how Nino Brown would treat a baby. What's interesting here [in Nemesis] was that both characters respect Black life, respect life period. There's complexities there. This is not a perfect world. It's not a straight line.
Are there times where you've been sitting around like, "damn, if we hadn't done New Jack, I don't know if Ice-T would be In this cop roll on TV"? I mean, even thinking about Chris Rock. I remember knowing him as a comedian, and then seeing Pookie go through what Pookie went through and be like, "Damn, are we going to be seeing him as a serial killer?" Do you ever think about the actual impact on the people and the cast from then until now?
Well, it's a trip because I'm going to the Cannes Film Festival for New Jack City, and Nemesis, but for New Jack City as well. We just had a big screening in New York. I think we're doing one in Paris.
What happens is you realize that there's a seat for all of us at the table. There's the brother that reads a little bit more. There's the brother that may have a little more revolutionary outlook, a little more consciousness. We are not a monolithic vibe. We come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. And when you can set a table where we can all coexist and figure it out and go at each other, you go, "Oh, wow, there's something for everyone."
Total sidebar question, but I don't know how many times I'm going to be able to speak to you in life. For a number of women in my life, one of their favorite episodes of Living Single happens to be the one with you and your father not knowing that you both were dating Régine at the time. Do you have any memories, any favorite moments from working on that set of iconic Black sitcom with your father?
Dad was smooth, man. We just played with it and had so much fun balancing it. I was playing that weatherman character. My pop's character was sort of earthy and straight and sort of a no bullshit guy. And so I said, "Well, let me go the opposite." I'm going to go with this sort of vain compassionate cat at a whole different direction. And we had fun playing with those dynamics. So we'd create something. It almost reminded me of some Key and Peele. You see them take on a character and play it and so we could stick with it. And there were times when we were no longer the set and we would play those two characters. That was the thing with Pop is that we had a lot of laughs together, too. He was such a wise cat.
I think that there were lessons that my dad was able to bring me, and some of that came out when we worked together because there was a work ethic there, but there was also fun. Me and you, were having a good conversation, kicking it, but we also, there's a fun to it. And I think that not losing the joy of being a Black man and laughing and having a good time with it, all the different kinds of us.
