Aaron Pierre is a star in the making. 'Rebel Ridge' shows you why

NEW YORK (AP) — Before Aaron Pierre wanted to act, he wanted to be the fastest man in the world.

Growing up in West Croydon in London, Pierre was drawn to track and field. He thought gold medalist sprinter Maurice Greene was the coolest man on Earth. Pierre ran the 60-meter, the 100-meter and second leg of the 4x100 meter relay.

“Something that’s been instilled in me is to be calm in high-pressure situations – dude, one of which is the relay second leg,” Pierre says, speaking by Zoom from his apartment in Los Angeles. “When the whole school is out and you get that baton, you’ve got to just focus on one foot in front of the other.”

How fast Pierre can put one foot in front of the other is a point of interest not just because of the quickening pace of his career. (This December, he’ll be the voice of Mufasa in Barry Jenkins’ “Mufasa: The Lion King.” ) It’s also because for a guy who can be really fast, the 30-year-old Pierre, as an actor, has startling power in stillness.

In Jeremy Saulnier’s “Rebel Ridge,” a taut, suspenseful thriller that debuted Friday on Netflix, Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a former Marine who, while biking, is stopped by police and has a bag of money – bail money for his cousin – confiscated. What follows is a tense and evolving standoff with the rural town’s corrupt police department and its chief (a terrific Don Johnson). And until he isn’t, Pierre’s Richmond is unyieldingly patient and unthreatened. He’s a preternaturally calm martial arts expert. A demure Rambo.

“I had to employ a level of trickery on my brain,” Pierre says. “This character that Jerry Saulnier has written and created, is so badass. It’s understandably, deeply tempting to do too much. I said to Jeremy I had to do my best to normalize how cool Terry Richmond was.”

“Rebel Ridge” is one of those overwhelmingly clear moviegoing experiences: Pierre is so obviously a star in the making. From the moment he rides into town on a bike ("a modern-day horse," says Saulnier), he commands the screen with a singular potency. He has the body of a chiseled athlete but the heavy, melancholy eyes and resonant baritone (this is a man who's inheriting a role voiced by James Earl Jones, after all) of a Shakespeare-trained thespian.

Though Pierre has been seen in a number of earlier films and series (Jenkins’ “The Underground Railroad,” last year’s sci-fi drama “Foe” ), “Rebel Ridge” is his first lead role.

“Once I got on a Zoom with Aaron, I had only seen a clip of ‘Underground Railroad’ and that was enough to sell me,” says Saulnier. “I saw the chops. I saw his presence. I said, ‘That’s it. That’s my guy.’”

Saulnier, the writer-director of “Green Room” and “Blue Ruin,” is one of the most gifted genre craftsmen in Hollywood. “Rebel Ridge” is his first film in seven years, but it’s a reminder of his prowess in lending thrillers earthy authenticity and rich atmosphere.

“I miss texture,” says Saulnier. “Like seeing shocks on cars and knowing you’re in a real vehicle, even when you’re doing a dialogue scene. That level of veracity, I think, is being removed from moviemaking. If the top tier filmmakers with $100 million-plus budgets can’t sell an interior car dialogue sequence, let’s just go back to basics.”

Saulnier first cast John Boyega in “Rebel Ridge,” but Boyega departed the film just as it was starting production. Saulnier calls that rupture “water under the bridge.”

“John and I would both agree that it was the best path for both of us. There’s no ill-will at all,” says Saulnier. “Whatever pressure system that got created when we were looking to cast that role ended up this very unique experience. When I see the film and how people are reacting to it now, it’s just undeniable how amazing an actor Aaron Pierre is.”

Pierre grew up in a counsel estate (government housing) in West Croydon. His father, he says, is an actor, teacher and life coach; his mother has been, among other things, a project manager. He speaks glowingly about them and of his London youth.

“West Croydon is my favorite place in the world. It truly enormously contributed to the man I am today,” Pierre says. “It really instilled the importance of intentionality in me. It also contributed massively to how I view my journey, my career’s journey. For me, as much as I am deeply passionate about what I do and wouldn’t want to do anything else, before that I am a son, I’m a brother, I’m a friend. I’m many things before I’m an actor.”

Pierre began acting as a teenager and ultimately graduated London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In summer of 2018, he landed the role of Cassio in a production of “Othello” at the Globe Theatre that starred Andre Holland and Mark Rylance. Barry Jenkins happened to catch it and that night messaged Pierre through Twitter. “I was convinced that someone was having a laugh at my expense,” laughs Pierre. That led to “The Underground Railroad.”

Working with Jenkins, Pierre began finding himself as a screen actor. Jenkins, he says, taught him to put truth and honesty above all else in performance. On his first day on set, Jenkins approached him about an important scene that wasn’t landing.

“Barry came up to me and was like, ‘Aaron, I love what you’ve done on these first few takes, but we’re not landing on the truth right now. I need you to find the truth, and I need you to find it now because the sun is going down,’” Pierre recalls, chuckling.

“Rebel Ridge” brought many new demands, though, including being first on the call sheet. The film had had a tortured path to production, through the pandemic and Boyega's unexpected exit. But Saulnier remained committed to making it how he envisioned.

“There were certainly forks in the road where I could have tapped out, and been fine,” Saulnier says. “I dug in and made sure whatever version we ended up with, if it wasn’t the best version possible, it would have been better on a shelf. The fight was to hold the line at quality.”

Saulnier was inspired by real-life instances of civil asset forfeiture, which is when police can seize money purely on suspicion. There are some echoes of movies like “Mississippi Burning,” Saulnier grants, in how “Rebel Ridge” captures a Black man ensnarled by Southern racism. But Pierre's Richmond is a more modern figure, who encounters a prejudice that has merely gone just below the surface, hiding beneath legal cover.

“One of the many things that appealed to me about this character was his ability to regulate his emotions even in moments which are undeniably, blatantly unjust and intentionally so,” says Pierre. “He does it in a way that’s so not demonstrative and so not braggadocious that even when he’s articulating how patient he’s being with you, you still might not quite understand. He’s not bringing out his extensive martial arts certificates or resume. He’s just trying to share with you that you’re approaching a line.”

For Saulnier, “Rebel Ridge” is the first film he's made that, though it is enveloped with a sinister, shadowy darkness, is less reliant on high levels of brutality. Instead, “Rebel Ridge" heats up with a slow burn made possible by Pierre's simmering performance.

“It’s been a long time coming, this moment,” Pierre says, with gratitude. “ And I’m just doing my best to be present in it.”

AnnaSophia Robb, left, and Aaron Pierre pose at the LA Premiere of "Rebel Ridge" at the Egyptian Theatre on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Don Johnson as Chief Sandy Burnne, left, and Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond in a scene from "Rebel Ridge." (Allyson Riggs/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond in a scene from "Rebel Ridge." (Allyson Riggs/Netflix via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — American consumers and home buyers, business people and political leaders have been waiting for months for what the Federal Reserve is poised to announce this week: That it's cutting its key interest rate from a two-decade peak.

It's likely to be just the first in a series of rate cuts that should make borrowing more affordable now that the Fed has deemed high inflation to be all but defeated.

Consider Kelly Mardis, who owns Marcel Painting in Tempe, Arizona. About a quarter of Mardis' business comes from real estate agents who are prepping homes for sale or from new home buyers. Customer queries, he recalls, quickly dropped almost as soon as the Fed started jacking up interest rates in March 2022 — and then kept raising rates through July 2023.

As the housing market contracted, Mardis had to lay off about half his staff of 30. It was the worst dry spell he had experienced in 14 years.

After the Fed begins cutting rates on Wednesday, Mardis envisions brighter times ahead. Typically, a succession of Fed rate cuts leads over time to lower borrowing costs for things like mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business loans.

“I'm 100% sure it would make a difference,” Mardis said. “I'm looking forward to it.”

At the same time, plenty of uncertainty still surrounds this week's Fed meeting.

How much will the policymakers decide to reduce their benchmark rate, now at 5.3%? By a traditional quarter-point or by an unusually large half-point?

Will they keep loosening credit at their subsequent meetings in November and December and into 2025? Will lower borrowing costs take effect in time to bolster an economy that is still growing at a solid pace but is clearly showing cracks?

Chair Jerome Powell emphasized in a speech last month in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that the Fed is prepared to cut rates to support the job market and achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing.” That is when the central bank manages to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a steep recession and causing unemployment to surge.

It's not entirely clear that the Fed can pull it off.

One hopeful sign is that as Powell and other Fed officials have signaled that rate cuts are coming, many interest rates have already fallen in anticipation. The average 30-year mortgage rate dropped to 6.2% last week — the lowest level in about 18 months and down from a peak of nearly 7.8%, according to the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Other rates, like the yield on the five-year Treasury note, which influences auto loan rates, have also tumbled.

“That really does help lower those borrowing costs across the board," said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide Financial. “That helps to give nice relief to consumers.”

Businesses can now borrow at lower rates than they've been able to for the past year or so, potentially boosting their investment spending.

“The question is if it's helping quickly enough ... to actually deliver the soft landing that everyone's been hoping for," said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities.

Many economists would like to see the Fed announce a half-point rate cut this week, in part because they think the officials should have begun cutting rates at their previous meeting in July. Wall Street traders on Friday signaled their expectation that the Fed will carry out at least two half-point cuts by year's end, according to futures prices.

Yet Goldberg suggested that there would be downsides to implementing a half-point rate cut this week. It might signal to the markets that the Fed's policymakers are more worried about the economy than they actually are.

“Markets could assume that something is wrong and the Fed sees something quite terrible on the horizon,” Goldberg said.

It could also raise expectations for additional half-point cuts that the Fed might not deliver.

In the long run, more important than Wednesday's Fed action is the pace of rate cuts through next year and the ultimate end point. If Fed officials conclude that inflation is essentially defeated and they no longer need to slow the economy, that would suggest that their key rate should be at a more “neutral” setting, which could be as low as 3%. That would require a series of further rate cuts.

Many economists think the economy needs much lower rates. Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, notes that hiring has averaged just 116,000 a month for the past three months, a level equivalent to the sluggish job growth coming out of the 2008-2009 Great Recession. The unemployment rate has risen by nearly a full percentage point to 4.2%.

“There is a fragility out there when you are not hiring at a very strong pace," Swonk said. “This is still a much weaker labor market then we thought we had.”

Still, Fed rate cuts may provide a crucial boost to the economy just when it's needed.

Michele Raneri, head of U.S. research at TransUnion, a credit monitoring company, noted that lower rates typically lead consumers to refinance high interest-rate debt — principally credit card borrowing — into lower-cost personal loans. Doing so would ease their financial burdens.

And once mortgage rates fall below 6%, Raneri said, more homeowners will likely be willing to sell, rather than holding on to their house out of reluctance to swap a low mortgage rate for a much higher one. More home sales would help relieve the supply crunch that's made it hard for younger people to buy a first home.

“That starts to break up this logjam that we’ve been in where there’s a low inventory of houses,” Raneri said. “We need some people to start moving to start that churn.”

Other small businesses are seeing signs that the churn is picking up. Brittany Hart, who owns a software consulting firm in Phoenix that works with mortgage brokers, wealth managers and banks, is noticing more interest from potential clients in adopting new software to boost efficiency. That is because they expect the housing market to pick up.

Hart has started looking for three new employees to help handle the expected business, to add to the roughly 20 employees she has now.

“This is the first leading indicator that we are getting back to that normal activity in the housing market," she said.

FILE - A screen displays a news conference with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)