Brian Tyree Henry stars in the just-released Apple TV+ series Dope Thief, in which his character, Ray, poses as a DEA agent to steal money and drugs from small-time drug dealers. It's different than the characters he's previously portrayed, which is exactly why he found it appealing.
"I think every actor worth their weight in salt wants to stretch themselves and really explore all these different parts of them. And for some actors, it's harder to find people who will write those things and want to see you in those different spaces," he tells ABC Audio. "So when I got the script for Dope Thief, [director Peter Craig's] writing immediately just drew me in because I was like, 'They really gonna put Ray on? They gon' put Ray on television? They ain't gonna do that.'"
Though interested, Brian says he wasn't "quite sure" if he was ready to be Ray, knowing it'd "be incredibly hard," and would require him to be vulnerable and transparent in his life.
"But I was like, if I have that feeling, then I know that it must be something I should lean into," he says. "And at the end of the day, it was the most cathartic thing I've ever done."
In Dope Thief, Ray is seen surviving various life-or-death situations while dealing with trauma from his past. Despite the difficulty that came with bringing that to life onscreen, Brian says his job was to usher Ray "through his generational trauma, trying to find all the different layers of how he can survive and live with the choices he's made and the relationships he's built."
"That was incredibly exciting to me. I was like, 'Oh, this will be cool,'" he says. "I don't think anyone has ever seen me like this, and I just wanted to push myself."