Waves‘ Kelvin Harrison Jr. on Love, Loss, and Forgiveness

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Waves has all the makings of an archetypal contemporary teen drama: Instagram and parties, dreamy ocean scenes à la Moonlight, a visual aesthetic that runs heavy on neon, and a soundtrack boasting the likes of Tame Impala, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, and SZA. But there’s so much more underneath the surface—and such is the case for the Williams family, comprising high school senior Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), his demanding father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), his doting stepmother Catherine (Renée Goldsberry), and his younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell). Set in the suburbs of South Florida, Waves, directed by Trey Edward Shults, has a split narrative, with the first half being told through the eyes of Tyler, a popular wrestler with a souped-up truck and a girlfriend named Alexis (played by Euphoria‘s Alexa Demie). While secretly battling a career-threatening injury, Tyler faces immense pressure from his father to succeed physically and academically, a stress so great it would ultimately contribute to the film’s crux: an argument turned fatal. The latter half of the film, told through Emily’s eyes, sees a family grappling with the aftermath of a tragedy and navigating—sometimes clumsily—the complexities of love, forgiveness, and loss.

On a grand scale, Waves is a cautionary tale of suppressing feelings, or succumbing to societal norms. But more specifically, Harrison tells CR MEN, the film is about the difficulties of growing up in a middle-class black home. “You’re still harboring obstacles and traumas from [your] parents’ past,” he says. It’s familiar territory for the 25-year-old New Orleans native, who was just nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his role in Luce, a thriller about an adopted African-American high school student. “[Tyler and Luce] are being subjected to an older generation’s fears,” Harrison says. In the case of Waves, fears that, while well-intentioned, can manifest in the ugliest of ways. Below, Harrison sits down with CR MEN to talk preparing for the role, how Tyler’s relationship with his father mirrored his own, and the dangers in keeping up with the Joneses.

You previously worked with Trey on the 2017 horror film, It Comes at Night. What was it like working with a white director on a film that tells the story of a black family? Was it collaborative at all?
“It was incredibly collaborative. He had to refer to me and ask, ‘Is this OK? Are we perpetuating stereotypes and clichés? Do you feel comfortable with that?’ We were constantly trying to make sure that it felt truthful [and] honest, and with that comes balance and compromise in some areas. The movie isn’t autobiographical of me, so [with] certain things, I had to go, Well, this is Trey’s story and this is what it is. [In those cases], the questions we’d have to ask were, ‘Are we outside of the realm where these truths can exist in our truth as black people?’ So it was always a push and pull. He’s a great listener.”

What was it like working with Sterling? You’ve mentioned in interviews that you had a similar relationship with your father as Tyler did with his.
“My dad is a classically trained saxophonist-turned-jazz musician and my mom’s a jazz vocalist, so music was a huge thing in my home. I played jazz piano and trumpet, and [he was] constantly wanting to make sure I was on top of it and I was better than everyone else in the room. He had gone through his own experiences and his own trauma of his dad not providing for him; having the resources to do so but choosing not to help him propel in life. Choosing to put himself before his child. My dad worked so hard to get where he was, so his understanding of a young black man thriving and what it meant for me to thrive specifically was to push, push, push. That’s all he knew. So Trey [and I] obviously talked about that a lot, and that is mirrored in the psychology of why Ronald is the guy he is.”

What was it like filming the dramatic, intense climax where you killed Alexis? How did you get into character for that?
“Oh, it was the worst. You read something like that and go, Oh my god. My mouth dropped; I literally stopped breathing. This is the most deplorable, unthinkable, unfathomable situation anyone can possibly just go through. It is scary. It’s scary to even think that would happen to someone else, someone’s daughter. When you’re approaching something like that, it’s tough because you want to have a level of sensitivity, but terrible things happen everyday. And you have to understand that this boy’s actions were a mistake and a product of the pushing, of the pressure. That doesn’t excuse it at all, and we wanted to be sensitive to it, but Alexa also gave her own two cents and talked about her experience being in toxic relationships. We wanted her to be honest and we wanted to show that the worst things can happen if you don’t nurture the relationships and the connections that matter the most to us. It’s so easy for one bad move, one bad day, one bad accident to change everyone’s life. So we have to be more cognizant of what we’re bringing into our homes and how we’re allowing our youth and our parents to have an open dialogue to come together and make sure we’re healthy and we’re in a safe space and we can go together. That day [of filming] was just all about love and self help. I remember from the top of the morning we were like, Let’s make sure everyone understands what we’re doing. There were a lot of hugs. A lot of taking breaks. It’s just a tough thing to do.”

How do you think Tyler relates to your character in Luce? How is he different?
“Luce had a dialogue to use to fight against the prejudices and the boxes everyone wants to put him in, but Tyler didn’t. He doesn’t have those resources. Luce has the privilege of having two affluent, successful parents that happen to be white and gave him the resources he needed to be able to thrive at his fullest potential. Tyler, on the other hand, is already two steps back. His dad doesn’t know how to communicate, therefore he doesn’t know how to communicate. And no matter how good of a school he’s in, no matter how progressive the world he exists in is, he’s still trying to play catch-up. But at the end of the day, both of these boys are saying, ‘Allow me to relish in the opportunities and the sacrifices you made in your generation so that I can just be young, so that I can just be a kid. Don’t burden me with these ideas, these statistics, these expectations.’ It’s important to have wisdom and to have balance and to understand where we came from and how we should thrive as young people of color in 2019 America, but also give us the space to be young. We don’t have to live the life you lived. That’s the common thread between both of those boys.”

Do you feel that your high school experience was similar to Tyler’s at all?
“I was not that cool. I didn’t have a really cool girlfriend like Alexis. I did not have a cool truck. I drove a soccer mom van. Our lives were very different. I never had that level of popularity. I was never that confident in myself. But was so interesting about the part, and the reason I even wanted to play it, was that I always judged that guy. I went to school with Odell Beckham Jr.—he plays for the Browns now and used to play for the Giants—and he was popular. He was cool. That’s who we based the blonde hair off of and all those other things: being an athlete, being kind of progressive, being vulnerable, and feeling pressured. He really worked to get to where he was, and he worked hard. I never really had a dialogue with him about how he felt about it until later on in our lives when we got a little bit older. It’s a fascinating thing to look at him. I remember envying him, but also kind of judging him, like, ‘Oh, he’s a bro. He’s a frat dude.’ Because I just wasn’t that. But I had to humanize him to understand why Tyler did the things he did. Who is he actually? And who is Odell? It allowed me to understand that we’re all in the same boat and we’re all trying to figure it out and no one’s different from the person next door to them. It’s just who decides to put a better cover on top of it.”

How did you prepare for such a wrestling-heavy role?
“I was in a film beforehand where I played [a character] who was sexually abused for the first 17 years of his life and that was exhausting, so I lost all this weight and I was about 115 pounds. [For Waves], I had to get to 150, so I was doing six eggs for breakfast, half an avocado, a couple strips of bacon, a couple fruits, a couple yogurts, a protein shake, a protein smoothie, go to CrossFit, eat granola bars, do the training, go to lunch, eat another chicken breast, and so on. And then I would go to wrestling for an hour and eat another lunch before wrestling in the evening for another hour and eating dinner and having a meal replacement. That was for three months. It was exhausting. This is what it takes to get there, and this is the pressure a young person whose body and mind aren’t fully developed puts themselves through every day. That’s not healthy. But it’s what they believe is necessary. And putting myself through that, I was like, It’s necessary for me to do this, otherwise I’ll get fired. In that sense, it was similar to Tyler because he was like, I have to do this, otherwise I’ll lose my scholarship.“

How do you feel that Waves tells the story of the complexities of being a black family—and more specifically a black man—in America right now?
“We’re seeing a black family who’s experiencing what we would call ‘white people problems,’ where you have a level of success and you’re thriving and put together. It’s not the same issues as, say, being in a single-parent home in the hood and trying to fight for your life everyday or your dad’s working three jobs. Thats a different thing and that’s what we’re so accustomed to doing. But there is a world now where we’ve really been able to thrive as black people—to give our kids the opportunities that we want, to get them into private schools, to give them nice things like cars, but also, and even with my own family, they’re over-compensating with material things without asking how they’re actually feeding the home. How they’re feeding their children with love and understanding and education that’s beyond anything just by the book. Basics like how to love your family, how to love your parents, how to love your siblings—what work is being done there? Sometimes we’re so caught up in trying to keep up with the Joneses because we never had these things to get there, so we forget what’s going on in the actual home. This family is the perfect example of that; people thought my family was the perfect black family. Look at them all put together—they dress well and have nice things. Let’s keep those images coming out and let’s keep perpetuating that image to show that we can do this, like we’re the first family in a way. But what is beneath that? It’s going to challenge people to check themselves at the door and go, ‘What am I doing? Am I perpetuating fear in my home? Am I perpetuating fear in my children and myself? How am I part of the problem? How am I part of the solution?’”

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