INTERVIEW: Taron Egerton Talks Ray Liotta, ‘Little Shop,’ and ‘Black Bird’

Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird has become the latest in a long line of true crime turned into a fictionalized series, and what makes the series stand apart from others of its kind is the brilliant performance we get from star Taron Egerton as Jimmy Keene. A man who thought he was going to jail for five years gets “tricked” into a longer sentence, and a way he can commute that sentence is by getting a confession out of serial killer Larry Hall. Keene’s job is to find out where the bodies are, and he does so by “befriending” Larry and earning his trust.

Egerton brings Keene to life with humor (at times) to hide his fear, and with a scene later in the season where he’s crying knowing what he’s doing and who he’s dealing with, and it is all rolled into a performance that reminds me just how talented Egerton is—which I told him in our interview together by first praising his role as Elton John in Rocketman and celebrating how this is, yet again, an example of why he’s one of the best out there.

As part of our interview, I asked Egerton about working with actor Ray Liotta in one of his last film roles, and he gave a beautiful nod to the performer and the bond that they formed while working on the show as father and son.

“For me as an actor, it was a very special experience,” Egerton said of working with Liotta. “I’ve never done it before but I wrote a journal when I first started filming this job. And I went back and looked the other day and I read the first day that Ray and I worked together and I’m obviously a little bit pensive and reflective and emotional when I’m writing it because we did just have this very special connection that I can’t really account for. He was very reserved but also incredible open with me and very alive to me and we just clicked into this role of father and son very easily.”

I also selfishly finished our conversation asking about the seemingly dead in the water remake of Little Shop of Horrors that was supposed to star Egerton as Seymour, Scarlett Johansson as Audrey, Billy Porter as Audrey II, and Chris Evans as the Dentist. “At this rate, it’s going to be me and Chris doing it alone on Sunset Boulevard or something,” he said, and I instantly offered to play the part of “Skid Row.”

You can see our whole interview here!

The first two episodes of Black Bird are on Apple TV+ now and well worth the watch, not only for Taron Egerton’s performance but for the show as a whole! You won’t want to miss it.

(featured image: Apple TV+)