‘Clemency’ Star Aldis Hodge: Inside the Year’s Most Underrated, Heartbreaking Acting Performance
The best acting in a movie this year is in Clemency.
Alfre Woodard gives a towering, career-defining performance as a prison warden struggling with the burden of overseeing death row executions, especially after becoming close to an inmate desperately pursuing a clemency appeal and pleading his innocence. Danielle Brooks plays a woman from his past, who arrives midway through the film for one stunning scene and absolutely shatters you with it.
And then there’s Aldis Hodge as Anthony Woods, the inmate on death row. Hodge creates a portrait of devastating humanity in the face of injustice, a man war-torn by the battles between hopelessness and resilience, resignation and faith, and anger and peace.