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SPOILER WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for “Past in Prologue,” the series premiere of 4400.
Jharrel doesn’t know how, but he’s going to help. In 4400, he finds himself assigned by the government to work a top secret case when 4400 suddenly appear one night in a Detroit park. As a social worker, he wants nothing more than to unite them with their families — but that may prove to be more difficult than he anticipated. After all, many of these people have been displaced in time as well as space, and the government and its agents don’t want to let them go just yet.
Speaking to CBR, 4400 star Joseph David-Jones broke down Jharrel’s empathetic response to the group and their plight. He revealed why he enjoys seeing Jharrel challenged by his partner Keisha and how their conflict helps show “both ends of the spectrum” on many issues. He explained why he believes Doc Andre has the most “enlightening” story, where he fits in amongst the group and how his search for his brother will move forward. He also teased that The 4400’s powers are going to start “ramping up,” shared his own, personal connection to the original series and more.
CBR: What was your familiarity with the original show, and how has your view of it changed since you started working on the new CW series?
Joseph David-Jones: Yeah, I watched The 4400 series when I was a kid. It was one of the very few shows that my family and I all watched together as a family. We loved the show! It was something that we watched week after week. It really, really sucked that it ended on a cliffhanger. I guess the writers’ strike was the reason for that. But I hope that our show, even though it is not a pickup from where that show left off, but a reboot fully, I hope it brings some solace to the fans of 4400, the original, that is another story and that the concept will keep continuing.
Introduce me to Jharrel. If you were taking him out on a night on the town with your friends, what would you tell them about him?
My character’s name on the show is Jharrel Mateo. He is a 28-year-old social worker in the city of Detroit. The show itself tells the story of 4400 individuals who are either overlooked or undervalued and otherwise marginalized in their time period disappearing off the face of the planet and reappearing in modern-day Detroit, smack dab in the heart of the city, all at once. They are trying to figure out what happened to them and why they’re here. The government’s trying to race to determine whether or not they’re a threat.
Jharrel is sort of smack dab in the middle of that, trying to help them reintegrate into society. So he has been tasked by the government to uncover who these people are, what’s happened to them. He’s trying to figure out within himself the best way to help them while also trying to find his brother, who went missing under similar circumstances with the 4400 but may or may not be amongst them. That, in itself, is at the core of who Jharrel is, this loss that he suffered a year ago and is trying to deal with.
Which aspect of the character do you relate to the most and why?
There’s a lot of empathy in Jharrel, and I feel that way a lot… Even just seeing the state of our world today, I don’t know how to help but I want to help and that, at its core, is who Jharrel is with The 4400. He’s someone who’s trying to navigate a system that is so set in stone, set in place, to help these people, but he doesn’t know how to, and a lot of times, his attempts to help often just end up backfiring on him or blowing up in his face.
If you’ve seen the first episode, you see, in a sense, how that plays out, but that is who Jharrel is, someone who wants to help people. But through his attempts to help people, he is constantly either being humbled or, I guess, making things worse than what they were before, and I feel that a lot. [laughs]
As we come to find out, Jharrel has some personal stakes in this matter, since his brother is one of the missing. How will that inform his approach to The 4400 as the show continues?
He is looking for his brother, but he doesn’t know he is a 4400. At the end of the first episode, he’s all but ready to give up hope on finding him. He still wants to believe that his brother is there, and he is among The 4400, but every single attempt he’s made to figure out what happened to him or to find him has failed. Even his attempt to help Shanice reconnect with their family blew up in spectacular fashion. I mean, we’re going to see a lot of that in this series, but while he’s slowly losing hope on finding his brother Manny, there will be other sprinkles of clues or hints that he could potentially still be out there.
Tell me a little about Jharrell’s dynamic with Keisha. How will she continue to challenge him moving forward?
I really, really love the dynamic of their relationship. Keisha is a character who will give no quarter, even if quarter is due. But I feel like in having two characters who are just on two opposite ends of the spectrum, even though how they got to those places was similar, you really get a full understanding of both sides and it gives you the opportunity to formulate your own feelings or opinions on circumstances that are happening in The 4400 or just ideas — or not ideas, but the practice of government as a whole. It allows for you to see the size of both ends of the spectrum. That’s what makes me love their dichotomy the most.
Which other character does Jharrel have the most interesting dynamic with and why?
You know, it’s crazy, because I have such interesting interactions with each one of The 4400. I feel like he is slowly forming bonds with everyone, but there are people who you see him with more often than other characters, so I would say that would be Shanice and also Claudette’s character [and] Dr. Andre. He forms a really, really strong bond with him, as well, trying to help.
This is a difficult question! It definitely was such an ensemble cast, just because I work with all of them and they all are going to have their opportunities to have their stories shone a light on and it’s hard to be like, “Oh, this is the person that he connects with the most,” because he really forms unique bonds and interactions with each one of them. He does want to help them all.
Let’s narrow that down a little bit. Which other character do you find the most interesting, and why?
I would say Doc Andre, because I learned the most in his storyline. There were so many aspects about the early 20s in New York that I just didn’t know and about being a doctor at the turn of the century. It really was a point of enlightenment for me. Then also being the way the character has grown throughout the show and having a good amount of interactions wit him.
His episode is going to be my favorite, I think — even though I haven’t seen any of them, but through reading the scripts, I would say that is the one that is the character who I feel like is going to have not only the most emotional storyline, because he came from so far back and lost everyone, but also the most enlightening.
Jharrel is a social worker. Tell me a little about becoming a social worker for this role, and how that helps Jharrel express his worldview.
Yeah, it’s funny, because it was honestly one of the reasons why I was so interested in the character, was just because it was something that you really didn’t see on TV that often. It’s someone who is a man of the people, trying to navigate a system that’s not necessarily for the people, but just to govern them and to assess them and to make sure they’re being kept in control.
So it was already interesting stepping into a role that was different than what I’ve seen before, but I spent a good amount of time working and talking with social workers just to understand the weight that they carry when they’re working with a family, working with people who their whole lives are tied up in bureaucracy, and they don’t know if they’re going to be okay; they don’t know if they’re going to get citizenship. They don’t know if they’re going to be deported or if they’re going to lose their kids, everything, and all of that carries its own weight. It takes a toll on you. Wanting to do justice to that and bring that aspect to Jharrel was one of the biggest things that I wanted to do when I embodied him.
What is one moment or scene you can’t wait for audiences to see?
I can’t wait for audiences to see these powers are going to start ramping up. I cannot give too much away, but I want to say I think it is Episode 5 or 6 where it’s just like the whole dynamic of these powers shift. I’m super excited for people to see that. It sucks I can’t remember which episode it happens on, just because it’s over the course of two, but that’s what I’m most excited for people to see, especially sci-fi nerds like myself. When these powers kick off, boy oh boy, did they kick off!
4400 airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
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