Strung stars Lynn Whitfield and Coco Jones spoke with ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese about their new thriller movie. The duo discussed their roles, how Hollywood treats grandmothers, and more. Also starring Chloe Bailey and Lucien Laviscount, Strung is now streaming on Peacock.
“From director Malcolm D. Lee, a talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Lynn, this had to be an exciting role for you because you’re asked to do a lot of things that aren’t typically in a grandmother role. What was most exciting about getting to show these intense sides of yourself in this?
Lynn Whitfield: I’ll answer this in a nutshell. First of all, there’s the preconception of how people who have children are, and then they’re called grandparents. That’s a very hard term for me to apply to anything that I do, ever.
One of my roles as an activist in storytelling is to break some of those precepts of what it’s supposed to look like, because what people have in their mind that it’s supposed to look like is very annoying to me. I know some fly women. What usually happens when you put the word “grand” on anything, or even “mom” on it… [Looks at Coco Jones] You just said you played your first mom. Beware, girl.
What happens is that a neutering begins to take place. Sensuality, sexuality, everything. They start trying to make people cushy and easy to understand. I was not raised by women quite like that. That’s part of my activism as a human and as a woman, to keep changing those ideas of who someone should be when they have a grandchild.
Your character’s definitely not neutered in this.
Coco, you have some hilarious lines in Strung. You say, “Moms never believe that their kids are on drugs. I bet even Snoop Dogg’s mama is in denial.” What did you like most about this role, just adding some comedy to this film?
Coco Jones: Definitely, because one, I’m a scaredy cat, so I didn’t want to do nothing scary anyway. Plus, I was already terrified enough from the script.
But I really loved being able to lean into more of my goofiness. The characters that I feel like I’ve played before have their stuff together. It’s a little funny, but it’s really a little bit more professional. I really felt like, especially with Malcolm, he kind of just let me do and say whatever. So I really feel like I was growing my comedy muscles. I really enjoyed it. It was really fun. I had fun.
I definitely want to see more comedy with you in the future. You were hilarious in this.
Lynn, you have some pretty wild interactions with Lucien that I never would’ve predicted. What stood out about him as a scene partner?
Lynn Whitfield: That his work is very contained, and there’s a lot behind it. A lot of our acting together was in the thoughts and not in what was being said. He’s wonderful at that as well. So often it’s not what people say, it’s what they don’t say that life circumstances are really about. We got to do a lot of that kind of playing together.
Coco, you have such good on-screen chemistry with Chloe Bailey. How was it getting that best-friends vibe with her?
Coco Jones: It was so easy to give off that we were best friends because me and Chloe started in this industry really young. We would always see each other all the time growing up. She’s also really close with her sister, I’m close with my sister, and we’ve just been in this industry growing up together. There was so much to say, so many memories that we both had. Honestly, a lot of the work was done for us just because we’re industry kids.
Thanks to Lynn Whitfield and Coco Jones for taking the time to talk about Strung.
