‘Fightland’ Cast Breaks Down Duke’s Need for Revenge After [Spoiler]’s Death

The fight is just getting started on Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson‘s boxing and crime drama about former heavyweight champ Duke Kilroy (Howard Charles) and his quest for revenge on promoter and cartel boss Kingsley Marshall (Nicholas Pinnock) the man who ruined his life. Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Fightland series premiere!

TV Insider spoke with the cast about key moments from the series premiere, including the murder of Duke’s brother. Watch the video above for the full interview.

“I knew that would be a really important scene for me personally,” Charles says. “I wanted to do that as soon as possible. And we did. We shot that really early on, and I was very thankful because I knew that that was one of the few keys to the core of Duke. Duke’s reason for being becomes revenge. Revenge gives him purpose, but it’s also the thing that threatens to consume him or certainly what’s left of him. And that scene where Calvin is murdered is pivotal. And certainly just for my immersion into the character, that was a vital scene. It was a really emotional day. Yeah, we went to a very, very deep, very dark place, and I hope it served the character well.”

Starz

After the murder, a grief-stricken Duke chases down the perp and beats him to death. That leads to eight years in a U.S. prison. He returns to London to get revenge on Kingsley, who he has learned set him up and is to blame for his brother’s death.

Duke doesn’t get a warm welcome from his dad, Gary “Gazzer” Kilroy (Richard Pepple), who owns the family’s boxing gym, Kilroy’s, and who coolly refers to his son as a “visitor.” “Gazzer has cut him off,” Pepple says. “He doesn’t have a son as far as he’s concerned. And that’s not just because of recent events, it’s because of historic events that people get to find out as the show goes on. So, in his head, and as a way of protecting himself, he is a ‘visitor.’ It’s not his son. It’s certainly not the person he remembers. Duke’s come back a very different person. So, yeah, that’s Gazzer’s protective barrier coming up.”

Kingsley is mysteriously missing, but Pinnock says his character has plenty of game. It looks like his disappearance is part of a bigger plan. “I think when he entered the world of boxing, he didn’t realize it was going to be the criminal underbelly that he found,” Pinnock says. “And when he found it, he thought, ‘OK, I can work with this. And if I have to work with this, I’m going to have to be better than the other players who are ripping me off the whole time.’ And he just became better at it than most people.”

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To draw Kingsley out, Duke allies with gangsters and hits his target where it hurts. He manages to steal millions in drugs from the family crime enterprise, sending Kingsley’s adult kids Cebella, a.k.a. “Cece” (Anita-Joy Uwajeh), and Zeek (Charles Babalola) spinning. But they don’t realize who has hit them yet.

Of a scene where the siblings argue about their predicament, Babalola says, “It shows two young people who are running a crime family. You can’t forget their ages here. They’re not the age of Kingsley, but they’re dealing with some real heavy s**t. And quite early on, you get an insight as to what world these guys are living in and how dangerous they can be. Your name, your brand is very important in this world. How people see you, your reputation is very important. This stuff doesn’t happen when dad’s around. Now people know dad’s not around. It’s on Zeke, and it’s on CeCe. So, by all means, we need to make a statement. They need to make a statement, and they need to get that money back.”

Watch the video above to hear the cast discuss more key moments.

Fightland, Fridays, 9/8c, Starz (new episodes stream weekly every Friday)