INTERVIEW: “I Hope People See the Human Potential Behind the Walls” – Greg Kwedar Discusses His New Film Sing Sing

In 2005, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the men of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA): Prison Arts Programs performed Breakin' the Mummy's Code , a play penned for them by Brent Buell, who now serves as co-producer on Greg Kwedar 's new film, Sing Sing .

Debuting with rave reviews at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, Sing Sing depicts the behind-the-scenes of bringing Breakin' the Mummy's Code to the stage and stars many of the very same men who performed the play inside the walls of Sing Sing almost two decades ago.

Our introduction to the ensemble in Kwedar's film happens through an extended sequence that allows us to meet each man through their audition.

"It's my favorite scene in the movie," Greg Kwedar tells me when we sit down to discuss this miracle that has fallen into audiences' laps and stolen their hearts.

Kwedar is thoughtful when he speaks. His demeanor matches the sincerity coursing through the veins of Sing Sing , and each sentence feels more profound than the last making it easy to understand how such an honest, gracious movie was made with him at the helm.

Shot on film, the magazines used for Sing Sing would run for just ten minutes before they'd need to be swapped.

"On a normal set, if you were to run out of a mag, you would stop everything and swap [them],” he explains. “But there would be times where someone was in the middle of something that was clearly bigger than anything we were doing on set, and we would run out of that magazine, but we would just never call cut. We would just let them finish wherever they needed to go and have the space for that."

Kwedar shares that in the film's first cut, that scene was close to 30 minutes long, and "there are some things that are as – if not more – profound that are on the cutting room floor."

We spend a quarter of our time together discussing this singular moment which, for all its nuance, embodies the film's message.

Often, audition sequences are hurried through or used for comedic effect, but Sing Sing makes a point of lingering, making us meet eye-to-eye with the men society tells us are too dangerous to walk alongside us on the street.

Kwedar tells me the process of bringing that scene to life began with inviting the men to choose which part they'd like to audition for. They would then read for the role and answer some questions.

"Some of our cast was very prepared and off book, and you felt that energy,” he says. “Some hadn't prepared as much, and you feel some of those butterfly nerves. It recaptured a bit of what a casting might actually feel like. Then, as you move into these personal questions ... what you are afraid of starts to migrate from whatever those casting, vulnerable nerves are into almost like a confessional space."

As the scene goes on, you feel like you know all these men intimately. With most of them portraying themselves, Kwedar is allowing us to not just learn about a character but also about an individual human.

"It allowed for the men to fully bear and present themselves and introduce themselves to the world," he says. "The hope was – and I think it succeeded – that by the end of that sequence, the audience has fallen head over heels in love with all of them."

In the Esquire article Sing Sing was inspired by, journalist John H. Richardson writes, "Watching killers sing and dance is an odd thing. First it hits you—gosh, they're nervous and excited, giggly and shy, desperate for appreciation and recognition just like everyone else. Then you think of what they did to get here and you feel ashamed, as if your recognition of their humanity was actually a moment of weakness. Shouldn't these guys be punished? "

Kwedar, through his film, embraces Richardson's question in a reflective way — one that is often not entertained in the media.

I ask him what it means to cast a light on the humanity that blossoms in a place painted mostly in one light across media.

"We are constantly changing, sometimes in the smallest degrees," he tells me. "By being present, it forces us to really look at each other and see each other as we are, and also start to imagine who we can be and where we can go."

Sing Sing , through the very act of casting the men who the film is about, invites them to reclaim their identity while inviting us to challenge our line of thinking.

"That plays into not spending time trying to define someone by one moment in their life – and in a fixed identity – and allows it to be what it is, which is a constantly evolving identity," Kwedar continues. "Once you do that, there is such a capacity for learning. For growth. For possibility. I think it's a refreshing way to live that I hope people on the outside will also embrace just as much as they give the grace to the people on the inside."

It is easy to see how Kwedar created a space for this magic to happen because when I ask him what it means to be a director, he tells me, "My greatest joy is to be in the presence of someone's gift. I'm just someone who is in awe of artists and finds so much beauty in what happens when we all achieve harmony together."

That awe wasn't reserved solely for the cast but also for Sing Sing 's crew.

"I had this thing — thank everybody who works on this movie every day by name for something specific that they did," he says. "I think someone's name is the most important sound that anyone will ever hear, and to be specific is recognition. The more we can pay attention to what we're all giving, I think the more we'll want to give of ourselves."

With just 19 days to shoot, it cannot be overstated how much of an accomplishment it is that such an honest film bursting with humanity came from this cast and crew.

Kwedar tells me his job was "to create the conditions where something honest can happen," and just from the film's opening sequence, where the camera gently approaches a silhouetted Colman Domingo as Divine G, it is evident that he succeeded in his mission.

Those decisions were not just creative, however. They are the foundation of Sing Sing ’s production process.

One of the most notable things about the film is its financial structure.

"We all – from Colman Domingo as the star through us, through production, through our production assistants, through post-production – worked for the same rate," Kwedar shares. "We also all collectively own the movie, and the only variable of someone earning more or less, either by compensation or equity is time."

It is rare that something like this happens, but it is a common practice for Kwedar who also implemented this in 2021 on Jockey , a film he co-wrote and produced.

"What we're saying with that is that everyone has the same intrinsic value. If time is the only variable, but the rate is the same, then we're sort of flattening a hierarchy," Kwedar explains. "It creates a culture where the best ideas can come forward and be seen. It migrates your team from an employee mindset to a partner mindset. Most importantly, in a story where this formerly incarcerated group of men are bringing forth the depths of their own experiences, they have literal ownership over their own story."

Kwedar tells me, "If you're making a movie as a community, and if that's what the values are, you really need to look at the entire process and see — is it living up to those values?"

It is evident that this was at the forefront of his mind before the cameras had even begun to roll.

"I had a notebook on set, and on the first page, I wrote a couple mantras," Kwedar shares. "The top one was: all we have to do is be honest. It's the only thing. But it is the hardest thing to do."

The cast and crew behind Sing Sing have achieved more than honesty; they have achieved authenticity.

As someone who has worked with people who are currently incarcerated, one of the most emotional moments for me in Sing Sing was seeing the intricate attention to detail from production designer Ruta Kiskyte inside each of the men’s cells.

Rarely has a film captured the worlds that exist inside the tiny confines of a prison cell.

Divine G's walls are covered in papers, with stacks of books lining the outskirts and reams of documents overflowing on the desk. It looks like a writer's studio. A place where art is born.

"Those cells were painstakingly recreated and designed to Divine G and Divine Eye's exact specifications and from their own memories," Kwedar says. "Divine G's room was this refuge where he was surrounded with all the work he was doing to try and prove his own innocence and the case he was building, but also the work he was doing to litigate on behalf of other men inside who didn't have legal support."

If you have a loved one in prison, you are familiar with the community formed behind the walls and how these men not only become each other's family but also their life support when challenging times hit.

A friend of mine who served 12 and a half years in an Alabama prison often says, "I did my time, but I didn't let the time do me", and Kwedar speaks to that "slow time" and how the men work to combat the conditions that threaten to steal every inch of your humanity.

"[Divine G] is also a writer. He wrote 13 novels while he was inside, as well as several plays and a memoir," Kwedar says. He tells me Divine G "was a consummate list maker for the day, for the week, for the month, for the five years, for the ten years, and he had a very ordered and structured life" inside Sing Sing.

He also speaks on Divine Eye's cell, saying, "[Divine Eye] was in search of the artist that was within and finding a new way to get respect beyond fear."

Kwedar reveals that "a lot of what was hidden [in Divine Eye's cell] was about status and currency, with little flourishes of some of the hand-drawn artwork that he had done and the things that we start that were sort of hiding in plain sight amongst all the other trappings of the other life he was trying to evolve from."

Hearing him speak so carefully about a detail that might get overlooked, but it highlights Sing Sing 's power to speak without preaching. Never once does it have to plead with its audience. It allows you to arrive without patronizing signposts that make you resentful of the final destination.

My time with Kwedar is coming to a close, but before I leave, I have to ask him what his hope is for Sing Sing . What does releasing a film so hopeful mean in a time where hopelessness is currency?

"I hope people see the human potential behind the walls," Kwedar begins. "I think in those close-ups, what's also happening is that real confrontation of really seeing each other eye to eye and hearing our stories and hearing a name."

Language and its relationship to our identity is hugely important within Sing Sing , and that same message is now intrinsic to its distribution.

Kwedar makes a point of never uttering the words "ex-con" or "felon" or other words that the media covets to dehumanize. He and his team send press releases that ask for person-first language, something that criminal justice reform advocates have long been campaigning for.

"You can't unsee that once you do," he continues. "Once you recognize that common humanity and start to see that human potential, you start to recognize and feel this desire of wanting to see these human beings return to the world to lift these communities up and to make this a better place."

But beyond that, Kwedar hopes people recognize that "no matter how hard it gets for us outside the walls, no matter how bad, we can still see each other. We can still choose joy. We don't have to settle for misery. If it could happen there, it surely should and can happen anywhere."

Sing Sing is now in theaters across the United States and will debut for UK audiences on August 30.