"David Makes Man" Cast And Crew Reflect On Season 2

Tonight’s the big night when OWN’s Peabody AWard winning series “David Makes Man” returns for Season 2.

Source: Courtesy OWN / Oprah Winfrey Network

BOSSIP had the opportunity to speak with the cast and crew last week ahead of the new season’s premiere.

The series from Academy Award® winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, who executive produces the series alongside showrunner Dee Harris-Lawrence, stars Akili McDowell, Cayden Williams, Alana Arenas, Travis Coles, Phylicia Rashad and more. Season two finds David in his 30s (played by Kwame Patterson, “Snowfall,” “The Wire”), a rising businessman facing an opportunity that will change him and his community forever. The mounting pressure forces David to choose between the instincts that helped him survive or finding a new way to truly live. Production returned to Orlando, Florida and commenced filming in October.

Check out the trailer below:

Kwame Patterson called the experience of taking on the role of adult David as “definitely a blessing and an honor,” he admitted he felt some pressure he felt stepping into the role of David for Season.

“I had some nerves in the beginning,” Patterson admitted. “Coming in to a situation where Akili did such a phenomenal job in the first season, should have been nominated for an Emmy in my opinion, he did an amazing job. So wanting to come in and make sure I made him proud. I wanted to make sure that when I stepped into David’s shoes that I didn’t destroy the character he created.”

The new season will follow David as he grapples to overcome his adolescent traumas, an experience Patterson says most people should be able to identify with.

“I think we all tend to carry trauma over from when we’re younger to getting older a lot of times,” Patterson told BOSSIP. “Sometimes we deal with it and sometimes we don’t, sometimes we bury it, just like David on the show, and when you bury it sometimes it spills out of control.”

Executive producer Tarell Alvin McCraney told BOSSIP that his mantra while working on the show has been “Cause and Effect,” and revealed that while the trailer focused largely on adult David, he hoped we would spread the word that young David would continue to play a large role in the series. In fact, he revealed that having both of their stories play out simultaneously was always part of his vision for the show.

“In the very pitch, I talked about how this time in your life how trauma can crystallize you,” McCraney told BOSSIP. “Your body and your brain thinks you need to be this way for the rest of your life. We always talk about how peopole get to this big age and we become our big grown self and we are still battling the same monsters with the same tools we had at 14 or 15 years old and that was always going to be very important for us to see that dynamic for how that 14-year-old shows up in the boardroom or that 15-year-old shows up at the presentation. Or when you get pressurized from your intimate partner to be like, ‘Hey, I need you to talk more,’ and that 15-year-old goes, ‘I don’t want to.’ And you go ‘Who is that and where did that person come from? And why was that my reaction? So that was always going to be part of it.”

Hit the flip for the full interview with Akili McDowell and Kwame Patterson and more info on the new season of “David Makes Man.”