David Oyelowo

And what happened with Newborn is that through the course of this protracted journey to the now that we're in,

we got to go back and do reshoots and really analyze what it is we wanted to do with the film.

Because the film is about my character, Chris Newborn, who endures seven years of solitary confinement and is dealing with the detrimental effects of that mentally and is trying to reconnect with his family after coming out with his wife and his son.

And that's very delicate, you know, because I talked to a few people who had dealt with that reality, specifically a guy called Richard Rosario, who had been wrongfully incarcerated for 20 years, seven of which were in solitary confinement.

And the effects of it, I mean, after 13 days, studies have shown you're never the same again.

Because it's 23 hours a day in a 9x6 cell with fluorescent lights on all the time.

And what that does to the mind, the psyche, the soul, it's torture.

all the time other than to torture you there's no rehabilitative effect to having lights on all the time it is the opposite of rehabilitation you know and that's the point it is it is punitive just it is purely punitive and so it's the height of punishment anything and everything to make your life uncomfortable is what solitary confinement

And you say it perfectly there.

It is the opposite of rehabilitation, which supposedly is what we're supposed to be doing with prisons.

But what people don't know is that 80,000 people, men, women, and children are in solitary confinement today in America.

And so in order to tell this story in a way that wasn't just...

dark and challenging and traumatic, we chose to see what life was like for this man post the incarceration and how he goes on a journey to trying to reconnect with his family while dealing with this trauma.

So it's a psychological thriller, but you know, it's, it's re that's wrapped around a love story.

You know, this guy trying to get back to his wife, trying to get back to his son.

Well, so perfectly put there, Conan, because it's also about the things we take for granted and how desperately as human beings we need connection.

Like human beings are designed for connection.

And the ultimate way you dehumanize someone is to extricate them from human connection.

I mean, we all, to a certain extent, felt that during the pandemic.

And that was one of the most debilitating things is this feeling of