Behind the scenes on the set of Fight Night with Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle, and Terrence Howard
Don Cheadle plays the real-life Atlanta detective J.D. Hudson.
Photograph by Eli Joshua Adé/Peacock
It’s October 1970, and Muhammad Ali’s triumphant return to boxing in Atlanta has spawned a daring million-dollar robbery that is now threatening to ignite a mob war. On this particular afternoon, Atlanta police detective J.D. Hudson, embodied by Don Cheadle, has zero expletives left to give. He yanks Samuel L. Jackson’s Frank Moten (the “Black Godfather” of New York’s underworld) out of his luxe, shag-carpeted Hyatt Regency suite, drags him into the hall, and then dangles him over the side of the 22-story hotel atrium.
“You’re gonna give me Chicken Man!” demands Hudson.
“Or what?” growls Moten.
Hudson then jams a gun into one of Moten’s mutton chops and replies, “Or we’re gonna see if you can fly.”
Moten nervously glances down and politely asks, “We gonna take your car or mine?”
“Cut!” yells director Craig Brewer.
Watching the monitor in an adjacent room, executive producer Will Packer smiles. “Moving on.”
“Solid gold!” exclaims Jackson to his old friend Cheadle.
The explosive exchange was being filmed in front of reporters from People, TV Guide, and Atlanta last spring on Doraville’s Assembly Studios set of Peacock’s star-studded Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, set to release this month. Alongside Jackson and Cheadle, the limited series stars Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard, and Kevin Hart, who also serves as an executive producer.
Taking a break on set, from left: Kevin Hart, Terrence Howard, and Samuel L. Jackson
Photograph by Fernando Decillis/Peacock
Based on the Packer-produced hit podcast of the same name, released by iHeartRadio in 2020, Fight Night first takes viewers ringside at Atlanta’s Municipal Auditorium on October 26, 1970. On that famous night—which drew the likes of Sidney Poitier, Diana Ross, and Coretta Scott King—Ali, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War who was consequently stripped of his heavyweight title, returned to the ring for the first time in three years.
Twenty-two states had refused to grant Ali a boxing license, but thanks to a loophole in state boxing laws and the machinations of State Senator Leroy Johnson, the first Black official elected in Georgia since the Reconstruction Era, the former champ was back in business in Atlanta, facing Jerry Quarry.
In addition to A-list celebrities, the fight attracted gangsters and other underworld figures from across the country, including Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams, an Atlanta street hustler played by Kevin Hart in the television series. After Ali scored a technical knockout in the third round, thoughts immediately turned to Chicken Man’s planned after-party for the fight’s high rollers in the basement of a house in Atlanta’s Collier Heights neighborhood.
The Handy Drive basement had been outfitted with roulette wheels and poker tables. But before the gaming could start, masked armed robbers burst into the house and ordered attendees to strip naked while liberating them of their fat wallets and jewels.
Myles Bullock, Melvin Gregg, and Samuel L. Jackson in between shoots.
Photograph by Fernando Decillis/Peacock
The majority of the series tracks the mystery of who orchestrated the heist, how detective Hudson got pulled into the investigation, and the whole affair’s bloody aftermath.
Jackson was a student at Morehouse College at the time and remembers the fight well, along with the heist. “The robbery actually took place a block and a half from where my wife [actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson] grew up,” Jackson says, relaxing between takes on the basement casino set. “It was a big deal. If you’re of a certain age, you know about it, but for young people, this is a new story.”
One of those young people is Fight Night executive producer and writer Shaye Ogbonna, an Atlanta native who grew up here in the 1980s and early ’90s. “I had no idea,” says Ogbonna of the story. “But knowing localized Black historical stories, I wasn’t surprised, since they tend to be told orally. This is really about the DNA of Atlanta. I felt like this was the story of me and my community.”
Packer moved to Atlanta in 1996 but wasn’t aware of the story. “When I first heard it, it blew my mind. I had a deal at iHeartRadio, so we turned it into a podcast first.”
Packer knew the project and the role of Chicken Man would be perfect as a rare dramatic turn for Kevin Hart, so he called and pleaded with him to listen to the first 20 minutes of the podcast. Recalls Packer, “He called me back over the weekend and said, ‘Dude, I listened to all eight hours. I couldn’t stop.’”
The pair then made phone calls to Jackson, Henson, Howard, and finally Cheadle, who all said yes. “That never happens,” says Packer. “You never get everybody you call, especially when every one of these people is used to being number one on the call sheet. And when you have a great ensemble like this, you better have something great for them to play.”
For Taraji P. Henson, accepting the role of Chicken Man’s slick side piece, Vivian Thomas, was a no-brainer. “Characters like Vivian are quiet storms,” Henson says. “She is a collector of information. I love the slow burn they wrote for her. She’s a hustler, a female version of Chicken Man but smarter, and—because it’s 1970, when women were fresh out of the kitchen—they never see her coming.”
Teresa Celeste and Taraji P. Henson (right)
Photograph by Fernando Decillis/Peacock
In the days following the heist, White Atlanta Police Department officers hit a dead end in their investigation, and Cheadle’s detective Hudson is called in to assist. Hudson, who also worked security the night of Ali’s fight, had helped integrate the Atlanta Police Department as a rookie in 1948, but more than two decades later, he was still legally barred from arresting White people.
Sitting at the basement poker table, shuffling cards between takes, Cheadle reflects on his portrayal of Hudson. “When you’re playing a real person, it’s important to have source material; it’s great to be able to pick up on [Hudson’s] character traits.” Being one of Atlanta’s first Black cops cut both ways in the Black community, Cheadle notes. “What is his true ability to move in that community, given that some people think he’s a savior and others see him as a Judas?” he asks. “We get to explore that.”
Howard, as stylish hustler and after-party guest Cadillac Richie, found his character with assistance from his wig: a long, flowing Barry Gibb–esque mane of blond hair. “Since there were no old photos of Cadillac Richie, I was like, ‘He might as well be the prettiest motherf**ker that ever walked down the street,’” says Howard. “You would think that the things Caddy is doing is out of self-motivated greed or self-centered egoism. Once I realized what his motivation was, it informed for me the actions he would take. He has to be greater than the circumstances he’s limited by.”
In an oral history of the Ali-Quarry fight published in Atlanta in 2005, former mayor Andrew Young said the national event helped to usher in a new cultural and political South, coinciding with Jimmy Carter’s election as governor and Young’s own 1970 run for Congress.
While studying at Morehouse, Jackson—who was a marine biology major before switching to acting—saw that transformation in real time. “The demographics of the city were changing, the political power structure was changing,” he says. “And there were all of these people coming to town or who were here in school, saying, ‘Hey, I’m on the ground floor of something that’s ready to happen.’”
To evoke the buzzy glamour of 1970s Atlanta, Fight Night production designers carefully re-created several legendary city locations, including the old Paschal’s restaurant and the Hyatt Regency hotel, where Ali and countless celebrities stayed for the fight. In addition to reviving the Hyatt’s iconic revolving restaurant, the Polaris, back to its ashtray-accented, Naugahyde furniture–filled grooviness, designers fully reconstructed a section of the hotel’s atrium on a soundstage.
“This is like the origin story of the city we know now,” says Packer, sitting in the Assembly Studios production offices. “The mecca, the seat of power Atlanta is now, really started to bubble up around this time we’re showcasing. Whether it’s Frank Moten, the gangster from New York who’s from Georgia, or [J.D. Hudson], who sees the potential in the Atlanta Police Department, they all have a vision for what Atlanta could be.”
Packer clasps his hands together and adds, “I had to make sure we were authentically portraying that.”
This article appears in our September 2024 issue.
The post Behind the scenes on the set of Fight Night with Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle, and Terrence Howard appeared first on Atlanta Magazine.
It’s October 1970, and Muhammad Ali’s triumphant return to boxing in Atlanta has spawned a daring million-dollar robbery that is now threatening to ignite a mob war. On this particular afternoon, Atlanta police detective J.D. Hudson, embodied by Don Cheadle, has zero expletives left to give.
The post Behind the scenes on the set of Fight Night with Samuel L. Jackson, Taraji P. Henson, Don Cheadle, and Terrence Howard appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. Read MoreAtlanta Magazine