Hulu's New Sci-Fi Series 'Kindred' Takes You On A Time Traveling Experience Through American History

After the success and popularity of award-winning writer Octavia E. Butler’s novel Kindred, fans everywhere have been waiting to see these characters come to life.

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Kindred Showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Opens Up About Adapting Octavia Butler’s Work

In Hulu’s new sci-fi series, audiences will witness time travel, puzzles to solve, American history and more.

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Bossip contributor Liz Smith caught up with the cast of Kindred to chat about what fans can expect from season one.

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First Liz chatted with Kindred writer, producer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins who spoke about the challenge of adapting the popular Octavia Butler novel.

People have been clamoring for Octavia Butler projects for some time now, can you talk about the pressure of helping carry on that legacy?

There’s a lot of pressure! I am one of the #1 fans out here and so everyday I realize if I wasn’t making this I would be one of those people clamoring. So I come with a lot of respect for that group. What’s really funny is when we began developing this project in 2016, you could not get Octavia Butler arrested in California it was wild and it’s been really profound and such an honor to watch the world and Hollywood catch up to her. I have to say I’m more excited than anyone for all the various projects in the making. Why not let this be the next iteration of her legacy. – Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Continue for more from the cast of Kindred

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Liz also spoke with the lead actors Mallori Johnson and Micah Stock. Their characters Dana and Kevin have an interracial love story that is tested by their experiences traveling back to when the only relationship they could have had would have been one of master and enslaved.

Now, there’s a love story happening in the middle of all this craziness between you two – what do you think makes Kevin and Dana so drawn to each other?

At the risk of sounding too on the nose, I think they feel like kindred spirits. It’s that unnameable thing that I hope everyone’s lucky to feel at least once in their life where the pole is so strong and you don’t necessarily know why. Immediately it’s the meeting of minds. They make each other laugh, they feel comfortable, they feel free together and that freedom is challenged both literally and figuratively. It was honestly an easy job, because Mallori herself is so charming and easy to fall in love with, so we all did. – Micah Stock

Source: Tina Rowden / FX

Kevin seems fully aware of the danger they’re in but Dana seems to constantly test her limits – how does that dynamic help or hurt them?

I think they handle the situation is such ying and yang kind of ways which is essential for their survival. Dana is constantly trying to fix everything around and she can’t help it! She is seeing the horrors of what these people are experiencing and at the same time trying to save her own self, her ancestors, her lineage. Every time she comes back and her and Kevin meet together it’s almost like they’re sharing their experiences from these two different sides of this world. It’s such a balance, he’s key for her survival in a lot of ways. – Mallori Jonhson

More from the cast of Kindred on the flip.

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Liz also got the perspective of Gayle Rankin and Ryan Kwanten, who play Margaret and Thomas Weylin, the owners of the plantation Dana believes her relatives came from.

I think it’s pretty immature for people to write off this series and assume it’s like others we’ve seen before that involve slaves. Black science fiction is important, and I know you all know better than most the power author, Octavia Butler has in her writings. As an actor is this what allyship looks like – telling the uncomfortable stories?

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I would hope so but you can’t always control how people feel. I trust Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, our incredible show runner and Octavia Butler so much that I wanted to delve into this territory to help expose and tell a story. I really hope it’s experienced as allyship. – Gayle Rankin

Watch Liz’s interview with Austin Smith, Sophina Brown and Sheria Irving when you continue.

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Sheria Irving, Sophina Brown & Austin Smith Discuss The Dangers And Possibilities In The World Of Kindred

Liz also gained further insight from Sheria Irving, Sophina Brown and Austin Smith, who prove to be central in Dana and Kevin’s survival.

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Official Series Synopsis:

Adapted from the celebrated novel Kindred, by Hugo Award-winner Octavia E. Butler, the FX series centers on “Dana James” (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can settle into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time. She emerges at a nineteenth-century plantation, a place remarkably and intimately linked with Dana and her family. An interracial romance threads through Dana’s past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.

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Kindred, Octavia E. Butler’s celebrated and critically acclaimed novel, has been adapted for television by writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins who executive produces the series with Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, and Jules Jackson. Janicza Bravo directed and served as an executive producer on the pilot. The eight-episode season is produced by FX Productions.

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Kindred Season 1 premieres all eight episodes Tuesday, December 13 exclusively on Hulu.

Check out the official trailer below:

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Hulu’s ‘Kindred’ Series Premieres All Eight Episode