Danielle Brooks And Walter Thompson-Hernández Find Grace, Healing And Hope In ‘If I Go Will They Miss Me’

Aug 17, 2026 06:38 AM - 2 hours ago 1

For Danielle Brooks, the opportunity to prima successful If I Go Will They Miss Me was an opportunity to measurement into thing quieter. Known for commanding performances that fto her larger-than-life characteristic radiance through, Brooks was drawn to a domiciled that required her to pass arsenic overmuch done what remained unsaid arsenic done dialogue. “And truthful I was excited to do that,” Brooks says. She was arsenic drawn to writer-director Walter Thompson-Hernández, whose passion for the task became clear during their first gathering astatine the London Hotel. “We sat down astatine the London Hotel for hours and conscionable chopped it up,” Brooks recalls. “And his passion for the project, I knew that I was going to beryllium successful bully hands.”

That speech besides revealed thing Brooks considers basal to the filmmaking process: collaboration. “I knew done speech that he was a collaborator,” she says. “I consciousness for illustration the champion worldly that you get is from board who are consenting to perceive from their actors and not conscionable dainty america for illustration puppets.”

That collaborative tone is astatine the halfway of If I Go Will They Miss Me, Thompson-Hernández’s feature-length description of his award-winning 2022 Sundance short, which precocious screened astatine the lauded show arsenic good arsenic the Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival. The movie stars Brooks arsenic Lozita, J. Alphonse Nicholson arsenic Big Ant and newcomer Bodhi Dell arsenic 12-year-old Lil Ant, a boy struggling to link pinch his distant father. At the aforesaid time, mysterious visions statesman appearing astir his Watts neighborhood.

The consequence is simply a profoundly friendly father-son communicative that uses magical realism, Greek mythology and the rhythms of a South Los Angeles vicinity to research family, generational trauma, incarceration, forgiveness and the anticipation of healing.

For Thompson-Hernández, those themes are rooted successful thing overmuch much personal: the communities and group he knows.

Honoring the Women Whose Stories Go Unseen

Brooks approached Lozita not simply arsenic a character, but arsenic a female whose life deserved honor. Thompson-Hernández told her that Lozita was inspired by personification adjacent to him who had died from cancer. Brooks initially looked guardant to gathering her, only to study that she was nary longer alive. “So past I was like, okay, this is astir honoring her,” Brooks says.

That realization expanded the domiciled beyond 1 woman. “This is astir each of the Lozitas whose voices are muted,” she says. “How tin we uplift them and fto them beryllium seen and radiance ray connected them?” Thompson-Hernández gave Brooks photographs of the female who inspired the character, and Brooks studied them closely.

She paid attraction to her hair, tattoos, clothing, and moreover the measurement she held her mouth. She studied images of her braiding her daughter’s hair, looking for the mini specifications that could make Losita consciousness for illustration a complete personification alternatively than a characteristic constructed solely from a screenplay.

“It was really the pictures, the photos that captured me,” Brooks says. “It was looking astatine her hair. It was looking astatine her tattoos... It was conscionable the specifications of her braiding her daughter’s hairsbreadth and conscionable really she held her mouth.”

For Brooks, that benignant of investigation is portion of the joyousness of acting. “That’s fun,” she says. “I unrecorded for exploration successful that way.” Thompson-Hernández besides gave his actors room to improvise, allowing the performances to create organically. For Brooks, moving alongside Nicholson and Dell created an situation wherever the process began to consciousness almost effortless.

“After dissecting the book and having specified a awesome segment partner successful Jay Fons and successful Bodhi, it felt easy,” she says. “It was a bully acquisition for me.”

Making a Movie Inside the Community

The authenticity of If I Go Will They Miss Me extends beyond its performances. The movie was changeable successful Watts, and the accumulation itself became immersed successful the neighborhood. It was acold removed from the polished, insulated situation of a accepted Hollywood set. “We didn’t person 1 trailer,” Brooks says. “We didn’t person crafty. We had a cooler for our drinks.” She laughs arsenic she describes the ambiance arsenic fundamentally “backyard type.”

But that simplicity helped the filmmakers seizure thing that cannot ever beryllium manufactured: the unpredictability and intimacy of organization life. At 1 point, accumulation had to extremity because a neighbour who worked from location refused to move disconnected her euphony during her luncheon break.

“She was like, ‘I’m connected my luncheon break. This is my playlist, and this is what I eat,’” Thompson-Hernández recalls. No magnitude of speech would alteration her mind. “And she would not change,” he says. Instead of fighting against the interruption, Thompson-Hernández recognized it arsenic portion of the world they were trying to portray.

For him, the accumulation was astir bringing master actors together pinch group from the organization who were already portion of his life. “They are existent friends of excavation and family successful this movie,” he says. “It conscionable felt really typical to beryllium capable to merge each these worlds.”

That attack helps explicate why the Watts depicted successful the movie feels lived-in alternatively than simply utilized arsenic a location.

Greek Gods, Airplane Boys and the Imagination of a Child

One of the film's astir unique elements is its blending of Greek mythology pinch the realities of life successful South Los Angeles. Lil Ant uses mythology to make consciousness of the adults astir him. His imagination becomes a instrumentality for processing analyzable relationships that whitethorn beryllium excessively difficult to understand directly.

For Thompson-Hernández, that thought grew retired of his ain childhood. “There’s already truthful overmuch mythology that exists successful this community,” he says.

As a child, Thompson-Hernández and his friends created imaginary characters they called “airplane boys,” inspired by the planes flying overhead. That puerility mythology became portion of the film's foundation. At the aforesaid time, Thompson-Hernández remembered encountering Greek mythology successful schoolhouse and realizing that the stories could thief him understand the analyzable group successful his ain life.

“When I first learned astir it, I was like, man, this is truthful beautiful and absorbing because it doesn’t only thatch maine astir Greece, but it besides teaches maine astir the group successful my life who are conscionable arsenic analyzable arsenic Odysseus,” he says.

Lil Ant makes those connections himself. “Medusa is Mom. Poseidon is Dad,” Thompson-Hernández explains. The filmmaker sees that arsenic grounds of the affectional intelligence children person but adults sometimes underestimate. “He’s making these beautiful connections that I deliberation we don’t springiness young group capable in installments for,” Thompson-Hernández says. “He’s like, ‘This personification reminds maine of Dad and Mom.’”

For Thompson-Hernández, mythology becomes a connection done which Lil Ant tin understand the group he loves. “It felt relevant,” he says. “And it felt for illustration a measurement to understand analyzable group successful our life.”

A Film About Grace

If mythology gives Lil Ant a measurement to understand his family, grace gives the movie its affectional center. “Grace is my favourite connection successful the English language,” Thompson-Hernández says. “It’s specified a beautiful connection that I don’t deliberation we opportunity capable of.”

The movie asks what it intends to emotion group who whitethorn person wounded us, peculiarly erstwhile those group themselves whitethorn deficiency the devices to show up successful patient aliases meaningful ways. At the halfway of that mobility is Lil Ant, a 12-year-old boy who tin still spot ray successful analyzable people. “This movie is astir grace,” Thompson-Hernández says. “This movie is astir a young 12-year-old boy who’s truthful emotionally mature and complex, and still truthful youthful, and has truthful overmuch ray successful him.”

For the filmmaker, Lil Ant's travel becomes a instruction successful forgiveness without requiring the assemblage to disregard pain.

“He’s capable to thatch america what it intends to forgive,” Thompson-Hernández says. “Both forgive and remember.” That favoritism matters. The movie does not propose that treatment requires pretending harm ne'er happened. Instead, it asks whether compassion and redemption tin coexist pinch the representation of what happened. “Even the astir analyzable group successful our lives, who possibly wounded america successful different ways, each merit a level of grace,” Thompson-Hernández says. “A level of compassion and redemption.”

The Complexity of Life’s Challenges

Brooks sees the film's committedness to complexity arsenic 1 of its astir important contributions. She believes Hollywood has excessively often approached Black communities done extremes: either images of bonzer wealthiness and occurrence aliases narratives centered exclusively connected hardship.

“We do person complexity,” Brooks says. “That’s what I want to make judge that we make the focal point.” If I Go Will They Miss Me allows its characters to beryllium successful that analyzable mediate ground. There is simply a begetter who has been incarcerated. A mother is navigating whether to enactment pinch a man she loves. A kid is trying to understand his parents while simultaneously constructing an imaginative world of his own.

For Brooks, those contradictions are not thing to soft complete for the liking of a much comfortable narrative. “We’re conscionable truthful complicated,” she says. She believes that is precisely what makes these stories necessary. “To get to show this communicative astir a dada who was incarcerated, astir a mom who’s really dealing with, ‘Do I enactment pinch this man that I love?’” Brooks says. “This is necessary.”

Thompson-Hernández’s authenticity is what drew her to the project. “The measurement successful which Walter has presented this to america arsenic an audience, america arsenic a world, is very overmuch authentic, very overmuch real, very overmuch honest,” she says. “So I will everlastingly backmost stories for illustration that.”

Finding Hope successful the Cracks

For Thompson-Hernández, the film's eventual connection is hope. He points to a statement from Leonard Cohen's “Anthem” astir ray uncovering its measurement done a ace arsenic a guiding philosophy.

“No matter really acheronian it gets, there’s ever hope,” he says. “There’s ever light.” That belief shapes Lil Ant's affectional journey: he's been wounded by his begetter but hasn't wholly abandoned dream for him. Thompson-Hernández doesn't want to uncover the film's ending, but he points to the measurement Lil Ant continues to spot his begetter done the mythology of his imagination.

“This boy, who his begetter has harmed, yet still feels hopeful astir his father,” he says. Something profoundly childlike and profoundly quality lives successful that decision. Lil Ant tin admit his father's failures while still seeing thing larger successful him. “He still sees his dada arsenic a Greek god,” Thompson-Hernández says.

That contradiction is the bosom of If I Go Will They Miss Me: the anticipation that group tin beryllium wounded and still love; that families tin beryllium fractured and still activity connection; and that communities facing difficult realities tin still incorporate imagination, beauty and possibility.

For Brooks, the film's connection is yet astir healing. For Thompson-Hernández, it is grace. And for both, it reminds america that moreover successful the darkest circumstances, location tin still beryllium a logic to judge thing beautiful is possible.

If I Go Will They Miss Me has a constricted theatrical merchandise successful Los Angeles connected September 11, 2026, followed by a wide theatrical rollout crossed 30-plus markets nationwide connected September 18, 2026.