You Don't Do Things Because Everybody Will See Them. You Do Things Because The Right People Will See Them

Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave and American Crime showrunner, John Ridley reveals what drew him from film to TV and how stand-up comedy prepared him for Hollywood.

- J.J.McCorvey

After his 2014 Academy Award win, John Ridley took his nuanced, issue-oriented storytelling to network television. Through his production company, International Famous Players Radio Picture Corporation, he writes, produces, and directs the Emmy-winning ABC anthology drama American Crime. In March, the show returned for its third season, tackling the hot-button topic of immigration. That’s just the start: On April 16, Showtime begins airing Guerrilla, a limited series starring Idris Elba and Freida Pinto that Ridley wrote, produced, and directed. His documentary, Let It Fall, about the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, will debut on ABC on April 28.

You’ve had great success in movies. How did you end up going all in on  television? I’ll tell you something, [before winning the Academy Award] I was reaching a place in my career where I was not very happy with the types of projects coming to me. It’s not as though the things I do [generate] an enormous box office. But I’d done interesting things—like U Turn, Undercover Brother, Three Kings—that have cult followings. Then around 2007, [the industry] went off the financial cliff, and Hollywood cut back on deals. It was all about the franchises. Studios weren’t betting on the more issue-oriented films.

At that point I [asked myself]: If this is going to be the last thing I can write or try to get made, what should it be? At that time I was really, really passionate about telling a Jimi Hendrix story, but a particular story, in a particular way, about a very particular moment in his life. That became [2013’s]