Courtney A. Kemp And Tani Marole Nemesis Interview

Picture Credits: Netflix

Courtney A. Kemp and Tani Marole know how to craft a good thriller. They’re the creators behind the new Netflix crime drama Nemesis. The series is a sunny Los Angeles crime story pitting two opposite sides of the law against each other: Detective Isaiah Stiles (Matthew Law) and expert thief Coltrane Wilder (Y’lan Noel).

In classic genre fashion, they’re two sides of the same coin in some ways.

Kemp and Marole clearly appreciate the staples of heist films. Look no further than the pilot, which ends with a heist in the Diamond District that’s pure atmosphere and style. Kemp, who created Power, and Marole recently spoke with What’s on Netflix about making Nemesis the exact kind of thriller they want to watch.

How important to you both was Nemesis being an LA show?

First Look At ‘Nemesis’: Netflix’s Highly Anticipated Crime Thriller From ‘Power’ Creator

Tani: It was of the utmost importance. Not only was it important to bring production back into LA — I mean, we were on the wave before the wave. People were talking about it. We were all about LA productions as soon as we came up with the idea. Beyond that, our crew members have families here. Our kids are here, our houses are here, so we wanted to stay here.

Filming outside of Los Angeles really wasn’t an option. I have to give all the credit to Courtney and our line producer, Phil, and our creative executives and executives over at Netflix for really figuring it out and slicing and dicing the budget to make it work so that we could really bring Nemesis to LA. We employed a 200-plus-person crew, who we’re going to be proud to see at our cast and crew screening soon.

Courtney: It was just after the fires that we started to shoot, too. Los Angeles was really at a low, so it was important. We really hope we have more seasons of this show so we can bring our amazing crew back.

Were there any neighborhoods or parts of LA not seen as much in television and film you really wanted to show in Nemesis?

Tani: Honestly, that was the whole goal. While Courtney and I were ideating, I’d be out with one of our staff writers driving through these neighborhoods. Courtney would be like, “No, be careful.” We went all through South Central, Watts, Compton. We went to the Diamond District. That block you see us shooting on, I literally was filming in a car on that block, going around the corner like, “Oh, this is going to be great.”

For us, it was really about showcasing Los Angeles in a way that you don’t see. So it’s not Beverly Hills, it’s not the Hollywood sign, it’s not just an American cafe. You get Leimert Park, you get South Central, you can get Hancock Park, you can get Bel Air, you can get all the little nooks and crannies.

Courtney: As I say all the time, Power had New York as a big character. It was a really big character. In our first season, we wanted New York a part of the show. We definitely wanted Los Angeles to feel like it was part of this show. If you are from here, if you grew up here, you understand exactly where we are and what we’re doing.

Courtney, any major differences for you between writing New York City and LA?

Courtney: New York was always kind of like my home. I mean, I lived there for a short period of time. I’m from Connecticut. I’m not going to claim that I’m a New Yorker by any stretch of the imagination, but I love New York passionately. I’ve lived in LA now for 20 years. My kid is from here. I gave birth to an Angeleno. So actually, it’s grown to be a city that I love also in its own way.

I would say this is a car city. I mean, you’ve heard this before. It’s a car city, so people are much more isolated than they are in New York. In New York, everybody’s on top of each other all the time. And here, there’s an expansiveness and a separation between people that really allows you to have different storytelling in a way.

On Power, we were lying all the time. We were like, “Oh yeah, I’m in Queens and an hour later I’m in the Bronx.” Yeah, right. Okay. I don’t know how you drove that distance without being stuck for hours. So it was fun to be able to actually be a little bit more accurate with time and distance.

Did you start with the characters or the world of Nemesis? What was the initial goal for the experience of the show?

Courtney: We were talking about what experiences we wanted to have as fans, what we wanted to watch, and things that we really love. Tani and I, we love heist movies. I always love family stuff and things that are thematically about generational trauma — but fun generational trauma, the best kind, the kind with guns.

Tani: I think it was the theme, character, world, essentially. We had an idea of what this should be from there. These are the components that need to go into that thing. And then from there, you get a natural evolution and then the world starts entwining. All of a sudden you’re manifesting and creating a whole other world right there.

You got your cop and your robber. Even in the pilot, part of the fun is already the suspense of the buildup to their clash one day. What did you both want to see in your leads before they go head-to-head?

Tani: It’s really essentially about, all right, let’s be honest, what are the key tropes? And then how do you pay off while subverting? So generally in a movie, you get the one general meetup and then the fatal ending, and that’s how it always happens. Let’s just call it what it is.

For us, we consciously took that and were like, all right, we know we have to give that to you. When we give that to you, it is completely up to us. How we give it to you, is completely up to us. We really looked at all the boxes of the heist genre, and then we aimed to service them, super-service them, while also subverting your expectations. You can leave with a smile on your face versus going, “Ah, it’s a knockoff.”

Courtney, I’m always happy to see an English major thriving such as yourself in the world. How does literature inspire Nemesis and your writing in general?

Courtney: You see James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston over my head? Not filmmakers, babies — literature. So yeah, when I’m writing anything, there’s a book called “L’Adversaire,” which is by Emmanuel Carrère, which is about a guy who basically — he’s a conman. He cons his whole family, his whole life. And very quickly the book starts out being about that man’s story, and then it becomes about Emmanuel Carrère himself and going to visit that guy and how that man seduces him a little bit. Not sexually, but in the sense of like, wait a minute, maybe I’m looking at this all wrong.

And I love the idea of being able to see the criminal from both sides. So, that always influences me. And of course, Power is “The Great Gatsby.” I’m always writing about literature. The last season of Power is “Richard III.”

People just don’t notice because the characters are Black, but I’m always taking from literature all the time because that’s how I grew up. I’m an English nerd. I have a master’s in English literature, the most useless possible degree, but whatever. I like reading. Reading is cool. It’s fun. People should read again — but not while watching Nemesis. They should put down the phone and put down the book and just focus on the screen.

Tani: Single-screen experience.

Courtney: Single-screen experience. Netflix, Netflix, Netflix. Just lock in.