Delroy Lindo on ‘UnPrisoned’ and Why He Won’t Be Put in a Box

Delroy Lindo isn’t the type to map out a five or 10-year plan for his life. “Apparently I’m not built like that,” the veteran actor says. But when it comes to his career, the idea, as he explains it, was to always “quote-unquote continue working as best as I could.”

At 70, Lindo is currently the lead in Hulu’s half-hour comedy UnPrisoned alongside Kerry Washington. He stars as Edwin, a formerly incarcerated father striving to repair his relationship with his daughter Paige, played by Washington. While he admits that he didn’t necessarily know that he’d still be acting nearly 50 years after his film debut in John Candy’s 1976 comedy Find the Lady, he didn’t exactly think that he wouldn’t be working now either.

“I’m thinking about a friend of mine — I think about him actually a lot these days,” Lindo shares. “His name is Al Rodriguez and many, many years ago, he said to me, ‘Man, I think you’re going to get more work the older you get.’ Swear to God. He said that to me. And as I’ve continued working — knock on wood — apparently, he was right.”

UnPrisoned, created by Tracy McMillan, is based on the author and TV writer’s own relationship with her father, Willie Harold McMillan, who was in and out of prison over the course of her life, and the trauma that resulted — from being placed in foster care as a child to her “picker” being broken when it comes to her romantic relationships as an adult.

In the fall of 2021, Washington, an executive producer of the series, which is a part of Disney Entertainment’s Onyx Collective brand, sent a letter to Lindo asking to speak with him about the role. Soon after, the trio was chatting on Zoom about their aspirations for the show.

“Rather than them telling me, ‘We want to do this, and we want to do that,’ it very quickly became a collaboration and an exchange of ideas,” Lindo says. “Out of that process, they, I have to say very graciously, agreed that I should be an executive producer on the show too,” he adds, recalling that he was particularly struck by McMillan’s characterization of her dad, who recently died on Jan. 21 at the age of 87, during that conversation.

“She said that if folk did not know that he had been incarcerated so frequently over the course of his life, you would not pick that up from just sitting and talking with him or meeting him. That got me thinking about how people get categorized, labeled and boxed in based on what the perceived reality of a given individual is without necessarily taking into account the reality of the human being that is in front of them,” he says. “And given that there is such a disparity in the criminal justice system in this country concerning people of color, that got me thinking that perhaps I might like to be a part of work that addresses not only that disparity but the reality of people who are incarcerated.”

Throughout the eight-episode series, Edwin’s pursuit of a fresh start is constantly at odds with others’ recollection of his failed past, be it Paige’s struggle to trust her dad when he makes a plea to live with her and his grandson after his release, or company policies that forbid him from being hireable. Yet to the point of McMillan’s own assessment about her father, it’s easy to forget Edwin is a felon, not just because he doesn’t fit preconceived stereotypes with his charming persona and polished appearance — a testament to Lindo’s portrayal. But there’s a certain ease with which he takes life’s setbacks — or accepts the far-reaching consequences of his actions — which plays into the overall comedic tone of the show.

“That’s kind of brilliant,” Lindo says of the approach. “The project was always presented to me as a dramedy. Kerry and Tracy understood that it couldn’t be didactic or polemic. We couldn’t get up on a soapbox and preach to people.”

In some ways, there’s a shared lens through which one can see Lindo’s real-life experiences and those of his fictional character — he makes a point to say his intention was never to impersonate Tracy’s father, Harold, whom he spent time with before his passing, but rather depict the spirit of their relationship. For instance, like Edwin, family is a strong motivator in Lindo’s life, particularly his pursuit of higher education. In 2004, he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in cinema from San Francisco State University. Ten years later, he earned his master’s degree in fine arts from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

“My mom always wanted me to get a degree,” he says. “I pursued acting, I never had a formal degree. So, I did it for myself, I did it for my son, and I did it for my mom.”

When it comes to his son Damiri, who’s now in his junior year of college, Lindo says he wanted to be able to speak from a place of experience when he talked to him about pursuing formal education, something that was of particular importance to him.

“I wanted to have credibility and he mentions it,” Lindo adds. “He talks about having seen me working on my thesis, getting up at 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning, and going down to my office. My son saw that. It was a special achievement over and above how proud I am of the work that I have done as an actor. Getting those degrees was an added accomplishment that makes me feel a little more complete and a little more whole.”

Growing up in Eltham, a district of southeast London, England, Lindo, the son of Jamaican parents, was the only Black child in his elementary school and only one of two Black kids in his high school. Interestingly, it was through acting that he found acceptance and his ultimate career pursuit.

“I think in retrospect, it had to do with how I was affirmed,” Lindo says, recalling his experience participating in a nativity play when he was just five years old and how the teacher pointed to his ability to project and remember his lines as an example for his fellow classmate. “It was an affirmation for me where perhaps in other aspects I was not being affirmed.”

Throughout his career, Lindo has had to maintain self-affirming beliefs about his abilities in an industry that hasn’t always welcomed or recognized his talent. Idris Elba, Lindo’s co-star in Netflix’s revisionist western The Harder They Fall, recently received backlash when he stated in an interview with Esquire magazine, “I stopped describing myself as a Black actor when I realized it put me in a box.” Lindo understands the sentiment.

“We’re actors. Many of us in this industry get typecast, boxed and categorized, i.e., ‘he or she only does this kind of work.’ So, I agree with him. Any actor worth anything, they’re going to want the same thing. They want to be responded to for their talent and not labeled as any one thing.”

Given the limits that can be placed on Black actors, Lindo finds it somewhat humorous when journalists, including this one, assumptively ask him how he chooses roles.

“It makes me smile on some level because it’s not as if I have a pile of choices,” he admits. “That’s not how it works. Certainly, that’s not the way it has worked for me.”

That, in a nutshell, is what Edwin must contend with as well. It remains to be seen whether the former convict will indeed triumph over the external influences that threaten his best intentions, as UnPrisoned has yet to be renewed for a second season. Lindo, however, has two other projects already coming down the pipeline. First, he’ll portray the spider-god Anansi in the upcoming six-part British fantasy miniseries Anansi Boys slated for release on Prime Video. At the end of May, he’ll begin production on the new Blade, starring Mahershala Ali, which is tentatively set to premiere Christmas of 2024.

As Lindo continues to prove his longtime friend right with each new role, he notes that longevity in the entertainment business is far from guaranteed. What has underscored his decades-long career — aside from his innate bullheadedness, as he puts it — is simply hanging in there, he says.

“Sometimes you feel, as I have felt on numerous occasions in the past, like you’re just holding on, barely holding on by your fingernails, you’re barely keeping your sanity. But the bottom line,” he stresses, “is one is holding on. Never estimate the value and the strength of maintaining however you can.”