Wunmi Mosaku Was “Blown Away” that ‘We Own This City’ Was Based on a True Story

HBO‘s We Own This City is a harrowing look at the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. For the last five weeks, we’ve seen how the officers of the GTTF used their power in the community to shake down citizens, steal money, commit overtime fraud, and even cause the deaths of innocent people. We’ve been flitting back and forth in time to see how the GTTF was able to take control within the BPD and what it took to catch these crooked cops.

However We Own This City doesn’t just look at corrupt police officers. We also meet people like civil rights attorney Nicole Steele (Wunmi Mosaku) who are nobly trying to make sense of what is going on. Nicole Steele is a fictional character, but the stories she hears in her interviews are all too real. She is a stand in for the audience and for anyone fighting for justice.

Nicole Steele is played by the effervescently beautiful and titanically talented Nigerian-British actress Wunmi Mosaku. While Nicole listened to others’ stories in the first four episodes of We Own This City, she revealed her family’s own history with racism and racial profiling in last night’s episode.

Decider caught up with Mosaku last month and talked to her about why she was drawn to the HBO project and what she hopes viewers take from We Own This City.

DECIDER: Wunmi, I want to ask you first, what drew you to this project and to the character of Nicole Steele in particular?

WUNMI MOSAKU: I read this script. I didn’t know it was based on real life events until Freddie Gray’s name was mentioned. And then I was started doing a little bit of research as I was reading, and I was just blown away that this was true, that this had happened.

And so, you know, Nicole, I feel like she was asking similar questions to what I was asking and feeling a similar way to how I was feeling. And I felt like she was the audience in the show trying to understand how and why this happened. And so I really appreciate that ‘cause she felt like a really safe perspective, someone who understood what I was feeling and what my disappointments and hopes for the people who are entrusted with my safety and our safety. And then that question of safety and who gets to feel safe, who gets to feel looked after. These people who have this power and they have this authority and this badge of honor and aren’t held accountable and, they’re just trusted and they’re just kind of put on this pedestal in society here in the States, and all over the globe and that conversation of like who these people are and what they think the job is. It’s come up, in my home country, in Nigeria and it’s coming up regularly in the UK, you know. We’ve just had the despicable and disgusting treatment of Child Q and you know, so much.

I just felt like the story was so urgent and so needed. And I think that is one of the things that I really appreciate about American TV. I do feel like they tackle huge social economic [issues] where people are unequal. You know, the patriarchy, racism…I feel like American TV does tackle a lot of these things boldly. And so I just wanted to be a part of someone actually having a conversation about what’s happening globally.

Wunmi, your character, she interviews these victims of police brutality and injustice, and some of these, you know, beautiful interview monologues are just difficult to watch as a viewer. So I’m wondering, were there any stories that took you by surprise or performances in those scenes that have stuck with you afterwards?

You know, there are a few. I’m now trying to, I can’t remember the young boy’s name in the show. I can’t remember his name in the show.

Was it the boy with the stitches on his head or?

You know, he was so sweet. First of all. That was his first acting job. And he was absolutely brilliant. And he was just so sweet. The whole, “I’m going to be okay for the girls?” and his little smile, like it just, it just warmed my heart so much because, within all of the violence, the humanity is what rings out. The strength, the perseverance, the hope, the hope of youth. I just really appreciated that moment a lot.

But also working with young Moose, like the really young Moose, that was really eye-opening because, you know, he was just telling me about this harassment that changed his life. I mean, these guys really hounded him. They really really sought out to ruin him. And just being next to a person, playing himself, talking about something that had happened to him and like, and then continuing that conversation off-camera, it’s just very sad because they really did ruin countless people’s lives and a community and the community of Baltimore.

And just the name “police officer,” “Baltimore police department” is ruined. You know these knock on effects, these ripples, they’re so huge. It just breaks my heart because completely. Yeah, I have to hold onto the hope of that young boy and the humanity, because it can make me feel like it’s hopeless.

If audiences can take one thing from this series, what are you hoping it is? Is it the story is a tragedy in the community? That the war on drugs is a failure? What is the one element that you really hope gets hammered home?

That the system is working as it should be and that is a poisonous system to so many. And if you are part of the community that the system works for and in a beneficial way, I really hope that they see when watching this that no one is actually safe if the system isn’t actually working for safety, like for communal safety, for the whole community.

Even if you feel safe, if it’s corrupt, it’s corrupt. And we need to fix it. And so, yeah, I guess I don’t want too much more conversation, [I want] more action.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.