'Dickinson' stars say shooting civil war scenes was 'therapeutic' in light of racial tensions in the US
- "Dickinson" stars Amanda Warren and Chinaza Uche spoke to Insider about filming the final season.
- The final season focuses on Emily Dickinson's writing during the American Civil War.
"Dickinson" stars Chinaza Uche and Amanda Warren said that filming scenes in the pandemic about the American Civil War were "therapeutic" due to the racial tensions existing in America in the wake of George Floyd's death in May 2020.
"Dickinson" is a modern look at the historical life of one of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson played by Hailee Steinfeld. The final season focuses on her life during the American Civil War, a war that was mostly about the right to own slaves.
In the show, Warren and Uche, who are both African American, play married couple Betty and Henry living in the same town as the Dickinson family. During this season, Henry (Uche) fights with the Union soldiers despite being discriminated against because of his skin.
Speaking to Insider about filming the final season of the Apple TV show in March 2021, both Warren and Uche said that the scenes about the civil war scenes were a "relief" rather than a burden.
"I think it's difficult to be alive right now," Uche said. "So I didn't find it difficult to play these scenes. These scenes were an outlet to put some of these questions and it was nice that we had scenes that held space for them. But that was a relief. It was nice to be able to put it somewhere and the hard part wasn't what we were filming, the hard part is the reality that we were living in."
Warren added: "There was something therapeutic particularly working during this time and putting your energy, this kind of energy. Because we went through it as, as a global society, people can relate to it. But we were afforded the great gift and luxury of putting that into something and sharing that energy with other people so that they can digest and process our differences as a society."
Alena Smith, the showrunner of "Dickinson," told Insider that despite the series focusing on Dickinson's life and family, the "whole conversation about racial justice in America [was] embedded in the show from the beginning."
"I also knew that was going to come to a culmination in season three because of the really fascinating biographical fact, which is that Emily, in the midst of the Civil War, writes a letter to a man named Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who is a radical abolitionist who formed an unauthorized regiment of Black soldiers in South Carolina," Smith added. "So even when I pitched the show, I knew that we were going to meet this group of Black soldiers."
The final season of "Dickinson" is available on AppleTV now.