Jacksonville actor takes spotlight in Underground Railroad film 'Freedom's Path'

When RJ Cyler first started work on "Freedom's Path," his new Underground Railroad film that opens this week, he had one goal in mind, to put a positive spin on the film.

“It’s not a trauma film,“ said Cyler, who grew up in Jacksonville and serves as star and executive producer of the new film. "We just want to give you a good story.”

The film follows a Union soldier (Gerran Howell of "1917") who deserts and is taken in by a group of people who are operating an Underground Railroad station to help people escape from slavery. The people running the operation, like Cyler's Kitch, are escaped slaves themselves, but it's not a film about slavery, said Brett Smith, who wrote and directed the film.

"It's not a Civil War film, not a slave film," Smith said in an online press conference. "Every character is already free or in process of running away. This story cuts through political, social barriers. It's about two people helping each other."

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Smith said he set out to flip the script on all the "white savior" films he's seen about slavery and tell the story of people who never made it into the history books.

"We know the big figures of this period," Smith said. "This is about the unknowns who played a role."

Cyler, whose acting credits include "Power Rangers," "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," "Emergency" and "The Harder They Fall," said he's been given a lot of scripts to read and can usually decide in the first 30 pages whether it's something he wants to do. With "Freedom's Path," he read the whole script.

“I kept wanting to read," he said. "It wasn’t a Civil War film. It’s practically a love story between two so-called opposite sides."

"Freedom's Path" is Cyler's first time producing a film. The role of Kitch really stretched his skills, he said.

“Mostly you’ll see me in comedies," Cyler said. "Kitch made me lock into a different part of my mental space. The character was so rich. He was written like fine chocolate.”

Cyler was raised in Jacksonville and moved to California with his family in 2013 to get his acting career off the ground. He said the Black Male Explorers program at Edward Waters University in Jacksonville changed his life, teaching him to set goals and work to achieve them. He was enrolled in the program during middle school and high school and made many friends.

“Got to pay homage to my boys that I grew up with," Cyler said. "We wouldn’t know each other from a can of paint.“

He said you can find little bits of people he met during his Jacksonville years in every role he plays.

"Each and every one of these characters honored or paid homage to someone I met growing up in Jacksonville," he said.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville's RJ Cyler stars in Underground Railroad film