Watch a Teaser for Barry Jenkins's New TV Series 'The Underground Railroad'

Sam Warner
·2 min read
Photo credit: Amazon Prime
Photo credit: Amazon Prime

From Esquire

Moonlight director Barry Jenkins' new Amazon series The Underground Railroad already looks like must-see television.

The Oscar-winner has been dropping first looks and teasers of the alternate history series over the last few months, and the latest one is certainly stunning to watch.

In the clip, we see a number of figures as events play out in reverse, all accompanied by a mesmerising score.

Photo credit: Amazon Prime
Photo credit: Amazon Prime

"They say history is written by the victors, so… let's run it back," Jenkins tweeted as he shared the trailer.

The series, based on the Colson Whitehead novel, is set in alternate America where the network of underground routes, safe houses and abolitionists (called the Underground Railroad) helped slaves escape to freedom is an actual railroad.

Opening-up about making the show, Jenkins told IndieWire: "There are people saying 'Oh, there's another project about slavery', but I think when you say that, we sort of reduce the humanity of the people who were enslaved, and we assume that the condition of slavery reduced these people to one experience.

Photo credit: Rich Fury - Getty Images
Photo credit: Rich Fury - Getty Images

"And yet when I read this book, the first conversation I had with Colson, I said, 'I don't want to do this as a feature. It has to be a 10 hour or 12 hour series, because the breadth of experiential covering here, it kind of unpacks the reductive feeling we get when we say, 'Oh, it's another story about slavery. I know exactly what that's going to be'.

"In this case, it's a story about Cora. We don't know exactly what that's going to be because you haven't met this woman before."

The Underground Railroad will star Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, Aaron Pierre, Joel Edgerton, Damon Herriman and William Jackson Harper.

The Underground Railroad will stream on Amazon Prime Video

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