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Actor Andre Braugher has made a career for himself as a television police officer, from his role in “Homicide: Life on the Street” to “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Going forward, he hopes that he can use this brand to address the topic of police brutality, starting with the hit NBC sitcom.
Speaking with Variety, Braugher said that after playing cops and detectives for several decades, he has become almost blind to the reality of police brutality and how departments actually work.
“I look up after all these decades of playing these characters, and I say to myself, it’s been so pervasive that I’ve been inside this storytelling, and I, too, have fallen prey to the mythology that’s been built up,” Braugher said.
“It’s almost like the air you breathe or the water that you swim in. It’s hard to see. But because there are so many cop shows on television, that’s where the public gets its information about the state of policing,” he continued. “Cops breaking the law to quote, ‘defend the law,’ is a real terrible slippery slope. It has given license to the breaking of law everywhere, justified it and excused it. That’s something that we’re going to have to collectively address — all cop shows.”
Though “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is a comedy show and Braugher respects the artistic instincts of the writing staff, he would like to see these issues addressed.
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine has to commit itself, as a comedy, to telling the story of how these things happen, and what’s possible to deal with them. I don’t have any easy answers, nor do I have a window into the mind bank of this writing staff,” he said. “Can you tell the same story? Can anyone in America maintain any kind of innocence about what police departments are capable of?”
As to how the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” characters would handle such a storyline, Braugher had a few ideas.
“It might mean that Holt is a staunch defender of the NYPD, or that he tries to burn the whole thing down. I know that he is a pragmatic man; I do know that he’s a loving, [if] robotic person,” he said. “I’m anxious to see what that’s all about, and I have no idea what Season 8 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine is going to be, because everything’s changed.”
“It could be a really groundbreaking season that we’re all going to be very, very proud of, or we’re going to fall flat on our face… But I think this is a staff, a cast and a crew that’s willing to take it on and give it our best. I think we have a damn good chance to tell the kinds of stories that heretofore have only been seen on grittier shows,” he added.
As reported by PEOPLE, Braugher’s comments come two months after his co-star, Andy Samberg, said that the writers were “rethinking” how to move forward with the show in the current political climate.
“We’re taking a step back, and the writers are all rethinking how we’re going to move forward, as well as the cast,” Samberg said. “We’re all in touch and kind of discussing how you make a comedy show about police right now, and if we can find a way of doing that that we all feel morally okay about.”
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