There is a selected group of actors who hold a special place in our hearts, and I was recently blessed to speak to one whom I know we all hold dear. Veteran, treasured, and beloved actor Ben Vereen is demonstrating what it means to be a Black actor performing in works that tell stories about Black people — stories that are often not taught in history books.
Vereen has taken on the role of Isham Worthy, an enslaved man in Richmond, Virginia, at the home of Eliza and Elizabeth Van Lew. In the eight-part series “The Gray House,” which premiered on Prime Video on Thursday, Feb. 26, viewers will learn the true story of an enslaved woman, Mary Jane Richards, who played a pivotal role in not only helping with the Underground Railroad, but with turning the Civil War on its head. Vereen recently took the time to speak with the AmNews about this important and incredible story.
AmNews: What attracted you to the role of Isham Worthy in “The Gray House” series?
BV: What attracted me to Isham was the history. There’s still so much of our story that hasn’t been told — significant history that shaped this country. The story of “The Gray House” is about a Union spy network that included women and both enslaved and free people of color. People operating in plain sight, underestimated and overlooked, yet helping to change the course of American history. After my work in “Roots,” I understood how powerful it is when we see ourselves inside our own history. That kind of storytelling doesn’t just entertain — it restores memory, so this felt like putting another stake in the ground. A marker that says: This happened, these people mattered, and their courage shaped this nation. Unaware people are a lost people. And these stories must be told so we learn from history and carry it forward.
AmNews: Isham works directly with the Van Lews, who are part of the Underground Railroad. How challenging is it for him to balance between acting like a slave, but knowing that he is playing a pivotal role in helping his people?
BV: Our people have been code-switching since we were brought to this country. That wasn’t weakness — it was survival. It was intelligence. Isham understands that deeply, but he is sovereign in spirit. He is not submissive. He knows exactly who he is. Isham is also educated — that was important to show. I made the conscious choice in certain scenes to carry a book. Isham is always thinking, observing, plotting. Inside the Van Lew household, he understands the role he must play, but he also knows he is helping to shape the resistance from within it. His relationship with the Van Lew family is complex and reciprocal. He advises them. He challenges them, so even as he moves within the structure of that house, he has agency — he is more like their kin and their conscience.
AmNews: What was it like for you emotionally to play this role — you are the elder, the teacher, the comic relief at times, and a connecting thread?
BV: Emotionally, it meant carrying many things at once. As the elder and the teacher, there’s a responsibility. You’re holding history. You’re holding philosophy. You’re grounding the room.
But he also has humor. He has swagger. He understands spectacle. He knows when to ease the tension and when to sharpen it. That complexity felt honest to me. We, as a people, have always had to be many things at once. Strength and softness. Wisdom and wit. Fire and restraint. Emotionally, it wasn’t about playing all those layers; it was about recognizing them. And honoring them.
AmNews: How was it working with Keith David as Rev. Henry H. Garnet?
BV: It was really special. Keith and I go back — I took over for him in “Jelly’s Last Jam” on Broadway, so we’ve both lived inside the role of Chimney Man. There’s a shared history there.
In “The Gray House,” watching him step into Rev. Henry H. Garnet — very much in the spirit of Frederick Douglass — was something. We only had one scene together, and he was there for a short time, but on my days off, I would go to the set just to watch him work. When you’re around someone who brings that kind of presence, it lifts you. It makes you sharper. There’s something powerful about standing next to artists who carry history in their bones. It challenges you and pushes you to meet the moment fully.
AmNews: What was the energy like in the room for the church meeting scene?
BV: That was a hard but powerful day. We shot the entire series in Romania, and there were only a handful of American actors. Many of the Black background actors came from Africa, France, the U.K., even Romania. They didn’t have a connection to American Black history, so we had to build that over the course of the 100-day shoot. As a Black man in America, this isn’t just history to me; it’s in my DNA. I walk with it every day, so throughout the series, I was constantly sharing context before scenes like that one — talking about the history, the emotional stakes, what these moments really represent. Before the church scene, I spoke to the cast about the weight of what we were portraying and the lineage of resistance we were stepping into. Once everyone understood what we were holding, the energy shifted — and it translated on camera.
AmNews: In this day and age, with what we are facing in this country, this scene has so much more meaning. What does it mean to you?
BV: We filmed this in 2023 … and what strikes me isn’t just this one scene — it’s the series as a whole. The parallels are hard to ignore. When you stand at the center of a story like this, you feel the weight of it. You feel responsibility. The conversations about freedom, about dignity, about who belongs — they’re still here. Every generation thinks the work has been done, and every generation is called back to it. We must stay vigilant.
AmNews: As Isham, how do you feel about being the conductor of the Underground Railroad?
BV: It was very emotional for me. In episode one, there’s a scene where I encounter the runaway slave Robert Ford, brilliantly played by a young British actor named Geoffrey McCarthy. We were shooting at night, with actual hounds barking in the background. He emerges from the woods — beaten, frightened, desperate — begging for my help. I felt this energy and turned around, embraced him, and said, “It’s going to be all right, son.” And in that moment, my God, my soul went back 400 years. I felt just a touch of what our people went through, searching for freedom, running for their lives. That was an amazing moment for me, and that baby boy, Geoff, made it real for me.
AmNews: There is a very painful scene in the second episode — your pain was so excruciating, I had tears in my eyes. How deep did you have to dig to bring out that much emotion?
BV: When I received the call for the series, I was deeply grieving the loss of my eldest child, Benjie, and my wife, Nancy. I have two children who are no longer with us, and that pain never goes away. As a parent, you never think your children will leave before you. I channeled a lot of my anger and pain from those losses into the work.
AmNews: In one episode, you voice your anger over a death. You voice your rage and how fed up you are. What was going through your mind in that moment?
BV: We had many conversations and debates about that scene. It was originally written to be very restrained, and solemn — more Martin Luther King than Malcolm X. My daughter, Kabara, who is an associate producer on the series, and I worked to reframe it so it would be true to Isham. We looked to the eulogy delivered by Dave Dennis at the funeral of civil rights worker James Chaney in the ’60s for inspiration. There is a righteous rage in that speech, a breaking point. A lot of what I gave in that performance, I gave up to God. You prepare, you wrestle with it, you talk it through, and then you surrender. You allow the spirit of the ancestors to move through you. They were with me that day.
AmNews: Why are productions like “The Gray House” necessary for families to experience?
BV: We are facing a very real erasure of our history, and not just our stories, but many others. Again, unaware people are a lost people. “The Gray House” tells a little-known, real-life story about women, and enslaved and free people of color, who shaped this nation through courage and intelligence. We have to keep these memories alive. When families watch stories like this together, it restores memory. It restores pride. It restores power. We descend from such sacrifice and brilliance. Future generations need to know that.
AmNews: How would you describe your character’s evolution throughout the series?
BV: At the start of the series, he is the conductor and moral compass of the Underground Railroad operation inside the Van Lew household. As the series progresses, tragedy strikes, and as the Confederacy closes in, what changes is the scale of sacrifice. The pressure intensifies. The losses become more immediate. And we see the emotional and spiritual burden of leadership on a man who refuses to be reduced or silenced.
AmNews: How incredible is it that Mary Jane came up with the idea for the Underground Railroad to be [more of a] spying enterprise?
BV: It really is incredible. In the series, there’s an event that compels the women to shift from moving runaways to moving intelligence north. It was collective. At that point in the story, everyone has reached a breaking point. There’s a shared rage there that fuels them into spycraft. That’s what makes it powerful to me. They weren’t just reacting to history — they were redirecting it.
AmNews: Why should there be a demand to tell this story?
BV: I would actually look at it differently. It’s not about demanding that the story be told — it’s about why people need to watch it. When I took this role, I had friends ask me, “Why are you doing another slave story?” And I understand that reaction. There is trauma attached to Civil War history, but if we turn away from it completely, we lose something. We stand on the shoulders of ancestors whose names many of us don’t even know. People like Mary Jane Richards — a real, liberated, educated Black woman with a photographic memory who risked her life to serve her country and free her people. That’s not a story of victimhood. That’s a story of brilliance and courage. We need to know these names. We descend from greatness, and if we don’t tell and support these stories, we diminish the power of our lineage.
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As you can see, Vereen has a very passionate, direct, and thought-provoking reaction to this series, and I can say from experience that it is stunning and riveting to watch. Once you start watching, you won’t be able to look away from the screen.
Vereen is joined by a very capable cast that includes Mary-Louise Parker as Eliza Van Lew, Daisy Head as Elizabeth Van Lew, Amethyst Davis as Mary Jane Richards, Keith David as Henry H. Garnet, Hannah James as Clara Parish, Sam Trammell as Jefferson Davis, Robert Knepper as Bully Lumpkin, Christopher McDonald as Thomas McNiven, Colin O’Donoghue as Capt. William Lounsbury, Colin Morgan as Hamton Arsenault, Ian Duff as Jericho Bowser, Rob Morrow as Judah Benjamin, Paul Anderson as Stokely Reeves, Ewan Miller as John Van Lew Jr., Catherine Hannay as Laurette Van Lew, Joshua McGuidre as Erasmus Ross, Marc Jenner as Ulysses S. Grant, and Charles Craddock as John Wilkes Booth.
The series is written by Leslie Greif, Darrell Fetty, and John Sayles. The Republic Pictures limited series is from Territory Pictures, Revelations Entertainment, and Big Dreams Entertainment. It is executive-produced by Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Lori McCreary, Rod Lake, Howard Kaplan, and Leslie Greif. It has engaging direction by Roland Joffe.