Once on board, Roth’s first assignment was signing the right actor to portray Lorenzo Council, the patriarchal Dempsy detective. “As I was reading the script I already knew that Sam Jackson was the only guy for the part,” he admits. “Like Lorenzo, he is compassionate and virile and has a lot of charisma. You can completely understand why he is somebody the community responds to.”
The Academy Award-nominated Jackson saw Freedomland as an opportunity to star opposite Julianne Moore and work with Roth, he says. He also responded to Price’s writing. “Richard has an extremely good ear for cop-speak,” the theater-trained actor says. “And he writes big speeches for you to do, which is a lot of fun for an actor.”
In regards to his character, Jackson notes that the intense pressure on Lorenzo to find the perpetrator is not uncommon in crimes when another police officer is involved — in this case, the victim’s brother. When Gannon police begin to lay siege on the Armstrong houses in their manhunt, Lorenzo finds himself in a difficult position, trying to protect the people of Armstrong and, at the same time, find the person responsible for the child’s disappearance. “Lorenzo is on a ticking clock in terms of how long it will be before things explode inside the projects if he can’t get the crime solved in time,” Jackson explains.
However, Lorenzo’s hands are tied. He is assigned to Brenda and cannot act as a buffer between the police and those who live in the projects, where he is affectionately called “Big Daddy” and his personal problems are well known (he has a son in prison). “Lorenzo is as much a protector as he is an enforcer,” says Jackson. “The overwhelming police presence at the Armstrong Houses causes a rift between Lorenzo and the residents. He’s helpless to do anything, even though he’s always been sort of like a white knight in this particular community.”
Lorenzo also suspects that Brenda is not being completely forthcoming about what transpired on the night of the carjacking. Lorenzo’s partner Boyle (actor William Forsythe) reminds him that in the majority of child abductions, the perpetrator is the person who reported the child missing. “If Lorenzo were to accuse Brenda of perpetrating a hoax, all she would have to do is say the word ‘lawyer,’ and he could never talk to her again, and no one would ever know what happened to her son,” explains Price.
So, although he sees havoc breaking out in his community because of Brenda’s claims, Lorenzo must act like her friend, her confidante, her confessor. “And it’s ripping him apart,” adds Price.
One of Lorenzo’s tactics for dealing with the bereaved mother is to bring her to the titular “Freedomland.” “He takes her to an old orphanage, which was a pretty brutal place in its day,” says Jackson. “It’s abandoned now and legend has it that when you’re in there you can hear the kids crying.”
Lorenzo and Karen, the head of a volunteer search team, bring Brenda into the creepy ruins of Freedomland and leave her alone inside, in the hope that she might reveal more about her son’s fate.
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