The Cold Descent – Exclusive Set Visit Report: Tony Todd, Michael Eklund, More!

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Jeryl Prescott – actor

DC: Tell me a little bit about who you play in the film…

JP: I play Desdemona. Desdemona is the former slave and current servant to Grace. Grace is the woman who boards the train with Desdemona later [after Jericho], and we’re on another kind of journey. Desdemona is on a journey, here, beyond just her journey on the train. She is on a journey toward unearthing a lot of repressed feelings. I think every person who was enslaved had to repress a lot, right? A lot of repressed anger, and we find Desdemona has been repressing a lot of other emotions too. So that’s one of the things to me that’s really fresh about the script and interesting in its portrayal of former enslaved African-American people. And it gives Desdemona an opportunity, at certain times, to lift that veil and show some of what she’s been repressing. So her journey to me is quite surprising.

Cold Descent

DC: Has she done anything in her past to deserve this train trip to hell?

JP: Ah- See that’s a matter of opinion. Yeah. Absolutely. And she, like any human being, like any mother, carries a wide range of emotions – not only anger, but guilt and regrets and all of that. And so, if we think about the context of slavery and how it generally is played out, where mothers are forced to give up children and fathers ignore their paternity… When we think about the masters as fathers to these women, who were often raped – these masters would ignore and relinquish responsibility for these children, all this [mess]. Desdemona in some ways is observant of all of this and an agent in it and, at the same time, totally without the ability to change any of it. But, like any mom, she feels responsible for some of what has happened around her, even though it wasn’t stuff she could control. And so it’s an interesting set of circumstances, right? So it’s layers.

DC: It seems The Cold Descent is much more character-driven than most horror films – like “The Walking Dead,” which you are on, which is also very character-driven.

JP: Absolutely. Especially considering that the story of my ancestors is something that I try to protect and hold very dear – because my grandfather’s father was a slave master. That’s how close we are, still, to the history. And so, for me I have no interest in – and it’s really not exciting as a project for an actor to play – a stereotypical slave who we only see on the surface. And even though we’re beyond enslavement in the time period of this film, we’re only like six years beyond, and so a lot of the mindset hasn’t changed. It would not be interesting to me if that was all that I had a chance to do. But I think Desdemona is quite unique, not only her name, but her journey and what she represents historically.

DC: What’s the mood on the set been, given the subject matter?

JP: Oh my God! I feel so lucky and grateful to have run into these people, these young, creative, excited filmmakers – Yousef, Michael Steves – all of them, really, and this crew that they’ve assembled. They have an openness to the creativity that’s just ideal for any project. I’ve watched the script get better and stronger because of what they allow the actors to contribute on our own. And to me it reminds me so much of Frank Darabont – it’s the same thing he did with “The Walking Dead” and the character I played, because Frank created my character, Jacqui. She was not in the comic book – the original comic book of The Walking Dead – and he created her and allowed me to invest her with some of the humanity that we saw on the screen. And the way that these filmmakers have been open to that is just amazing. It’s collaborative. There’s a respect and a… real responsibility to the history that they’re bringing to life, as well as a desire to make it fun and make it blow the tops of people’s heads off when they walk in there and see it.

DC: But it’s ambitious. There is a lot to do in 18 days. Do you like working at break-neck speed?

JP: You know, it is the only way. It’s the only way to make films in some impossible set of circumstances, you know, when it comes to time and space, and what has to happen psychologically. I think we all kind of like to feel that pressure. It makes us maybe rise to the occasion and jump over those very high bars. Yeah. That’s how it is. That’s how it is always. I can’t think of a production where people felt like, “Oh Yeah – this has been a cake walk!” It’s always crazy. [It’s like series television], getting new pages the same morning, sometimes, and all kind of things. Ultimately sometimes there’s a little bit of magic that happens, and it all comes together in a way that’s great.


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