Story highlights
Series was filmed as police involved shootings were occurring
Lathan said filming was intense
“Shots Fired” star Sanaa Lathan wants you to know that while you may be tuning into her weekly TV series, you are actually watching a movie.
“It really is a 10-hour film,” she told CNN. “It’s so much a movie that whenever we said ‘episodes’ on set, we were playfully reprimanded and told to call them ‘hours.’”
The new Fox drama reunites Lathan with her “Love & Basketball” director Gina Prince-Bythewood, who co-created the series with husband Reggie Rock Bythewood.
The show is built around the controversial killing of a civilian by a police officer – but with a twist. On “Shots Fired,” the police officer is black and the shooting victim is white.
Lathan plays investigator Ashe Akino, who along with a special prosecutor played by Stephan James, unravels the incident.
Along the way, they encounter another racially charged shooting death in the same Southern town involving a black teen.
While it all feels current given recent headlines, Lathan said the Bythewoods actually started developing the idea for the series five years ago.
The show was filmed last year.
“It was almost kind of chilling, the synchronicity in what was going on with the police shootings at the time we were doing the show,” Lathan said. “It was crazy how relevant it was.”
Life on set was intense, she said, having to film what were already grueling scenes at a time when police involved shootings were actually occurring and being protested around the country.
“It just drove home for us what a responsibility we had to tell this story and tell it with the most truth,” she said.
Lathan, who has been working in entertainment for more than two decades, said she is happy to see TV stepping up content that both reflects and explores the lives of people of color.
“I feel like TV is starting to look more like the melting pot we live in,” she said. “We still have a way to go, but I see how things are changing.”
“Shots Fired” is aiming to keep the conversation going, Lathan said, about important issues in this country.
“We hope to entertain and get people’s hearts and minds open to have more compassion and empathy for others,” she said.
“Shots Fired” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on Fox.