Inside the Queer World of Netflix's 'Eric' with Abi Morgan & McKinley Belcher III

Don't be put off by the simplicity of the title of the new Netflix limited series, "Eric." Set in the 1980s this dense, original thriller is a fascinating character study, a meditation on race and homophobia, and a nail-biting thriller, all in one.

Created by playwright/screenwriter Abi Morgan ("The Iron Lady," "Shame," "Suffragette"), the narrative follows puppeteer Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch), a demanding creator of a mega-popular TV children's show, who must deal with the disappearance of his 9-year-old son, Edgar (amazing newcomer Ivan Howe). Vincent has managed to alienate his wife, Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann), and most everyone else in his life as he becomes obsessed with finding his boy... in a most unusual way.

The lead detective on the case, closeted gay man Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), is also bent on finding the boy. Ledroit has a partner at home dying of AIDS and is dealing with racism and homophobia in his own department on a daily basis. In addition, there's a missing Black boy on the books, but little effort is being made to find him. Ledroit also seems to have a past relationship with the seedy Studio 54-esque owner who might be at the center of the crimes.

Born in Georgia, Belcher has appeared quite frequently on the NYC stage, most recently in the all-Black Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman" opposite Wendell Pierce. The openly queer actor's TV credits include major roles in "Mercy Street," "Ozark," and "We Own This City." Onscreen he's appeared in "Mapplethorpe" and "Marriage Story."

Besides her acclaimed plays and screenplays, Morgan's British TV work includes "Sex Traffic," "The Hour" with Ben Whishaw, and "River," starring Stellan Skarsgård and Lesley Manville.

EDGE had the pleasure of zoom-chatting with both writer/creator Morgan and featured actor Belcher.

EDGE: Abi, I truly appreciate the original work. Where did the idea for "Eric" come from?

Abi Morgan: It came from a couple of things. When I was 18, I went to New York and spent a bit of time looking after a child... Out of the apartment window, just across the street, I could see an old theater. And through the theater window I could see there was some kind of studio... People were always lined up. It was a chat show. So, I was curious about New York, this amazing iconic city that had always been such a character in so many movies I'd loved... And then the second thing is, my father was a theater director, and I grew up in theaters, so I've always loved backstage and the process and how things are made. And creative geniuses that are toxic messes, as well. I think that was also the drive to create the character of Vincent. And I think it was the collision of these two experiences of looking after this child in New York, and my love of American movies and the New York that I'd seen in those movies, and then just wanting to go back into that time with this creation of Vincent. That's how the idea basically came together.

EDGE: Can you tell us about the development process and it coming to fruition? Did it take a long time?

Abi Morgan: I pitched the idea to Netflix on a line, really. I was like, look, it's about this crazy, mad puppeteer who goes on this quest to find his disappeared son with a seven-foot blue puppet. And they were like, "God, we love it..." I pitch a million ideas, and no one does anything with them. But it was just one of those ideas that really grabbed... It was a pretty quick, but very intensive, writing process... I got a very strong pitch document and the first episode, and then the show got fully greenlit. Then it was a real process of distilling all the research that we'd done... It was then a process of refining.

Unusually, we had six episodes when we started shooting. Sometimes there's always a bit of a kick-bullet-scramble to get that last episode written. So, it was great to have the full shape of the show when we started shooting. It's a real lesson for me now. I really never want to do that again. I always want to start with the whole show written, I never want to go to that place, because it's really good to know where your show is gonna fully end.

EDGE: This series is so dense with themes and subplots, and one of the most compelling is Michael Ledroit. What a storyline – a gay cop working in this racist, homophobic New York City Police Department in the '80s. Can you both comment on creating and embodying this character?

Abi Morgan: All I can say is that we watched McKinley on tape, and we were just like, it's Michael Ledroit. I think there's a stillness and an intensity and a huge compassion, and yet tenderness, to McKinley as an actor that did so much with the character of Ledroit, who is a product of a military father, and, as you say, watching this very brutalized, very racist NYPD. But McKinley took it from the page for me and made it into something other.

McKinley Belcher III: I'm blushing hearing you talking about work. [Laughs] I was really excited when I read this. It was really important to me to get to play a queer role on camera, in a story that was interested in who he is, and what's happening with his heart, and how that affects what he does throughout the story. There's so much about Ledroit's journey through the six episodes, that it's about stepping into his power and understanding that if he wants to be the change that he wants to see in the world, he has to accept himself, love himself, and live in that fully before he can do the things that he needs to do to find this child, but also start to remedy the sort of systemic problems that existed in the NYPD.

EDGE: McKinley, it's so refreshing to see a complicated, nuanced, flawed, gay character on screen, where we don't have to be so careful about him being heroic. He is heroic, but he's a character a lot of us can relate to.

McKinley Belcher III: It's refreshing to play, too, because it's a whole human. And that's not something that you always encounter in the shows. [Turns to Abi] It's a gift that I'm eternally grateful for.

Abi Morgan: Thank you. Mutual.

EDGE: Abi, the show has this gritty realism, despite the obviously fantastical bit. It reminded me of the Lumet and Scorsese films of the '70s. Was this something you were striving for?

Abi Morgan: Oh, my gosh! I wish Lucy Phillips, the brilliant director, was here to hear you say that. I think it was absolutely key. All our reference points were those '70s movies, those early '80 movies. The writing of Paul Schrader was brilliant. I love "Taxi Driver." I love that whole period of filmmaking. But, also, I love the beautiful brutality of "Kramer vs Kramer." So, for me, there was a palette and there was a landscape where New York was a character within itself that felt so important. This is about people who are responding to living in this incredibly diverse, complicated city. We could have set it in Berlin, London... But there is a kind of exquisite elegance, and yet darkness, to New York, which I find very haunting and beautiful on film. I think it's something that really inspired, and certainly was part of the kind of palette and sensibilities that we talked about when we were discussing the making of the show.

EDGE: In terms of the early days of the AIDS crisis, there was so much anxiety and fear surrounding the disease, and homophobia reached new heights. We seem to have gone a bit backwards when it comes to queer acceptance in many parts of the world today. Can you speak a little bit about the crazy parallels with the '80s and now?

McKinley Belcher III: It's one of the things I'm most proud (of) with this show – this thing that feels like a thriller in some way, and it's whimsical and weird in a beautiful way – that we're also honestly capturing the experience of the AIDS epidemic. And looking at a couple navigate what it feels like to know you're about to lose someone, and be mourning them before they're even gone. And then you have these things at work that are vying for your attention and time. And then having people almost weaponize your sexuality and your love in a way that deny you the full experience of what it is that you're forced to endure. So, I'm really proud that all of that gets fully investigated over the course of the show.

I think it's beautifully acted, especially with Mark Gillis, who plays William. I'm very proud of it. And it's important, especially for people who were not alive at that time and who may not fully comprehend or understand the weight of what it is to carry [that], to not fully understand what's happening around you and be losing people and feel in danger. And what that weight is to carry day to day. I think that is lived in and captured on the show.

EDGE: Abi, you're a rather fearless writer. "Shame" is a great example of a daring piece that we didn't quite appreciate here in the U.S., among your fearless works.

Abi Morgan: Growing up in the '80s as a teenager, I think in many ways I wrote, and I'm always writing, for those young gay men who I saw hiding their sexuality because their sexuality was being weaponized against them at a time when there was so much fear. I don't know if it's fearlessness, it's more just a desire to write what you feel and see and want expressed in the world... I think what's terrifying is so many of the issues that we are dealing with within this mid '80s period is as resonant today as it was then. There are those violations still going on against human rights and all of these issues around the way we ignore the underclass. There are so many things in that that feel resonant. I just try and write about what I still feel is relevant to today.

McKinley Belcher III: And that's the gig, to hold the mirror up and say, "This is us."

Abi Morgan: This is us. Yeah, exactly.

EDGE: You both frequently work in all three mediums: TV, theatre, and film. The first two can almost be seen as writer's mediums. Can you speak about the differences you find and, maybe, similarities and what your preference might be? Shout out to you, McKinley, for your remarkable performance in "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway!

McKinley Belcher III: Thank you. First, with "Death of a Salesman," I never knew that would have been possible, to be on Broadway as a Black man playing Happy Loman, and to be in the midst of a family that looks like me. When I read that story as a freshman in high school, I never thought of it as being about me. And the fact that there are young men who came to see the show, and their first experience with Arthur Miller's work is that it's about them, is beautiful.

When I think about theater, I often think of it as my first love. I really enjoy doing the work on camera for film and TV, but my first love will always be the theater. There are a lot of similarities about how I approached the work, because, ultimately, it's still all about truth and about telling a story. But when I get on camera, it feels like having less responsibility, because when I'm on stage, I'm responsible for having a truthful experience, and responsible for sharing it with an audience. When I get on set, I'm only responsible for having a truthful experience. It's someone else's job to capture and share it with the people, so it somehow always feels like slightly less of a responsibility... I don't have to think about how it's captured. I just have to have a truthful thing going on. But I really love storytelling, so whatever medium I can do it in, that's the one I'll do.

Abi Morgan: I always say to young writers, "Try and write some theater. Theater is you and a chair on a stage, and hopefully your mama, if nothing else. You don't really need anything more than that." Whereas, as soon as you get into screenplay writing, you need everybody else to help you make it. And there's a freedom to theater writing, which I miss within my own writing now. It's something that I feel like I need to get back to, because I think it's really where you find your voice. It's such an authored, uneditorial space to be in. You don't get your lines cut and pasted. Screenwriting is brutal. And TV writing is really brutal. Maybe it gets less brutal the more experience you get, because you know which battles to fight, but what I love about screenwriting is the fact I could get rid of the monologue... those monologues, which I often fall in love with on the stage, just didn't quite work in the same way onscreen. Suddenly, the image could do that...I'm so grateful for my theater writing, and I'll always go back to it. Weirdly, when the pandemic was over, the thing I needed more than anything was to go to the theater. I wanted that live experience of being in an audience again... I needed it to make me better at my screenwriting...

McKinley Belcher III: It always feels like a grand act of generosity to me when I'm on stage. And there's something communal and almost spiritual about being in a dark room. And we all gathered around these ideas and this story, in these hearts, to experience what it is to be human.

Abi Morgan: [To McKinley] I love the fact you've used 'heart,' like, three or four times now. It so sums you up. Your performance has incredible heart. Not everybody has that.

McKinley Belcher III: Thank you.

"Eric" is streaming on Netflix.