According to “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” creator Shaye Ogbonna, the difference between a good period piece and a great period piece are the details. “It was important that we really be drilled down on the research and authenticity,” said the writer to IndieWire during a USG University Panel for the Peacock series, where he was joined by costume designer Ernesto Martinez and hair department head Lawrence Davis.
Part of that is because, in addition to being set in Atlanta in 1970, “Fight Night” is actually based on a true story about how on the night of Muhammad Ali’s comeback fight there was an after-party attended by several Black mob leaders from across the country that was attacked by armed robbers. The all-star cast for the limited series includes Kevin Hart as Chicken Man, the organizer of the party, Taraji P. Henson as his right hand woman Vivian Thomas, Samuel L. Jackson as gangster Frank Moten, and Don Cheadle as J.D. Hudson, the cop trying to figure out who really orchestrated the crime.
Related Stories
Though Hart’s character Gordon “Chicken Man” Williams was a real person, Ogbonna, Martinez, and Davis did not actually have too many resources that would have allowed them to be super exact about what he wore the night of the fight, so the showrunner’s job was to “write the essence of the character, and you just let the craftsperson create, and go with it, and then you just try to, again, mold it into into the framework of the story you’re trying to tell.”
Martinez also points out that “actual Chicken Man and Kevin Hart were very different people in stature and what they could wear. What the Chicken Man wore was not something that would be as great for our Chicken Man.” He is particularly proud of a custom denim suit he made for the lead actor, and “another one [suit] I made for him that was black, and I embellished it with patches, like 1970 Sly and the Family Stone.”
Chicken Man was also the character involved in one of Davis’s proudest achievements working on the crime dramedy. “I was adamant about making [his] sideburns a part of the wig. Normally in the industry, it’s a union rule that anything about sideburns [is] a makeup thing,” he said. “But as a former barber, I know that I like doing my own sideburns. I would not depend on makeup to do my sideburns on a haircut, but the wig maker said, ‘We’ll do exactly what you want to do.’ And I said to myself, this is going to cut down lots of his prep time, because otherwise he’d have to go to me to get his wig on and then to the makeup department to get his sideburns on. So that was a unique situation, and I was glad that they were able to do that.”
It especially made Hart’s flashback scenes easier to shoot. “I needed to make sure that that wig worked for 1970 as well as 1960, so it’s just a matter of tucking the sideburns under and putting a part in the wig and combing it back,” said Davis. “Those sideburns saved the day.”
For a longer discussion with Ogbonna, Martinez, and Davis tabout the craft that went into making “Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist,” watch IndieWire’s full interview with trio above.“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” is now streaming on Peacock.
IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of virtual panels celebrating the best in television art from the 2024-2025 TV season across NBC Universal’s portfolio of shows. USG University (a Universal Studio Group program) is presented in partnership with Roybal Film & TV Magnet and IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking. Catch up on the latest USG University videos hereor directly at the USG University site.
