Two Distant Strangers

A knee injury interrupted Travon Free’s college basketball career—and started his show business career. Now Free, 36, finds himself with an Oscar nomination as the writer and codirector of the live-action film Two Distant Strangers. I spoke with Free about critics who say the film is exploiting Black pain, what he learned from Jon Stewart, and his own experiences being hassled by cops: “I’ll tell you about three,” he said.

I didn’t necessarily think he was joking, because I knew he wouldn’t joke about something like that. In Minneapolis, during the Derek Chauvin trial. Sometimes it starts up again before you can even finish talking about the last killing.

I wanted to put that on the page and see if I could get people to feel what that feels like, even a little bit. It felt like I was exorcising something. After I finished writing, I actually talked to Jordan about it.

Each time Carter is killed by the cop, Merk, it’s painful to watch—but I found it especially tough to watch when Merk pins Carter to the sidewalk and chokes him out. They’re such great actors, and it felt so real. Even after the film’s conceit becomes clear, the audience—or at least white, liberal me—keeps thinking, Well, if only they knew each other better, maybe things would turn out better.

Why do you need to even know me to see me as human? I wanted people to understand that even if Carter is talking to the officer, getting to know him, befriending him, the reality is what happens next. We’ve seen stories of people who were part of community policing programs—and still got killed by the cops in that community!