[This story contains spoilers from the first season of Prime Video’s Cruel Intentions.]
If you were a young adult in the late ‘90s, you almost certainly knew Sean Patrick Thomas.
Before he was Jimmy James in the Barbershop franchise, spent four seasons as Detective Temple Page in CBS police drama The District or, more recently, portrayed Gene Mobley, partner of Mamie Till and father-figure to Emmett in Till, the sharp-jawed, warm-eyed actor had carved out his own corner of YA drama success.
During that time, he would star in films like Save the Last Dance and Halloween: Resurrection, roles that would follow his memorable turn as Ronald Clifford in Roger Kumble’s Cruel Intentions. Thomas took on the role of the music tutor to the rich, naive and virginal Cecile Caldwell (Selma Blair), with whom he falls in love with before their relationship is sabotaged by the ruthless, scheming step-sibling duo of Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe).
Now a seasoned actor with over 70 credits, including recent roles in hit series like Gen V and For All Mankind, Thomas is returning to the Cruel universe with the new Prime Video spinoff of the same name. This time, he portrays Professor Chadwick, a history professor and the latest faculty addition at Manchester College, a private and elite D.C.-area college, where he must navigate the educational whims and manipulations of a scheming set of rich sorority and fraternity members.
Soon after his arrival, he also meets his new teaching assistant, CeCe (Sara Silva), who wears him down in order to secure the role to bolster her résumé. Initially hesitant to accept her help, Chadwick warms to his TA thanks to her anxious but dedicated work ethic, as well as her flare for debate — a notable turn from the somewhat unsophisticated nature of Ronald’s relationship with Cecile in the 1999 film.
This CeCe keeps Chadwick on his toes, physically and intellectually, which results in more than the typical respect and admiration that can grow between mentor and mentee. But by the end of the season, a potential romantic future between the two is put to the test when he is found in bed with Caroline Merteuil (Sarah Catherine Hook), CeCe’s friend and sorority president. And much like her 1999 counterpart, Caroline schemes to ruin Chadwick, anonymously reporting him to the college for inappropriate relations in an effort to assert control.
Thomas spoke to The Hollywood Reporter before the show’s release about returning to the Cruel Intentions universe; why a TV spinoff might not have been possible before now; his professor character’s romantic and intellectual relationship with his TA; and the shifts in opportunity for Black actors in the 25 years since Kumble’s film.
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Not many actors get to return to the universe of something they worked on 25 years before, but especially in such a new way. Was it exciting to return to Cruel Intentions?
It’s very exciting for me to come back and do Cruel Intentions after all this time. It’s rewarding on so many levels, because I’m still here, number one. This is a tough business and I’m still here, and there’s something symbolic about that full-circle moment that really hits me. Also, I’m a much more seasoned man right now than I was then, a much more seasoned actor. So to get another chance to do this type of material with 20-something years more experience under my belt is a real treat and a real gift.
There have been Cruel Intentions film prequels, sequels and musicals. But this is the first TV show to air. What made you want to come back to the story?
I was briefly involved with one [show] from like 20 years ago called Manchester Prep. I think the issue with that the Cruel Intentions and the Dangerous Liaisons world is so intense, and raw to the bone, that the full breadth of what that is wasn’t really a fit with network TV at that time. So there was stuff that you couldn’t do then that you can do now — and we’re doing it on this show. When I heard the show was coming up, obviously, it was an exciting thing to hear, and I got to talk with the director, the writers and producers and it was just a fit. The character that they’d written, Professor Chadwick, was something that was an exciting evolution from the Ronald-ish character from the movie. But it’s a different vibe, and that’s what was exciting.
Professor Chadwick is unquestionably a different character than Ronald Clifford, but there are some noticeable parallels. Was that intentional and what for you ultimately makes Chadwick’s journey different from Ronald’s?
I can’t speak to whether it was intentional, but what was exciting to play was in the movie, the obstacle of why these people really couldn’t or shouldn’t be together was race, let’s be blunt. In this version, it’s because he’s a professor and she’s a student. What’s great about that is that it hints possibly at maybe, as a society, we’re a little bit better than we were, where we don’t have to talk about race in that way. I’m not sure if we’re better right now, but it hints at the possibility that we’re better, I’ll put it that way. So we were able to put race to the side and explore other dynamics, and this dynamic would be teacher-student relationships at a college. In that sense, the forbidden nature of it is a whole different thing, and it has more to do with things that you can control and not things that you can’t control, which to me, is much more interesting.
I think the potential cruelty of teens and young adults in the court of “coming of age” is timeless, but what for you might be different about this iteration’s cruelty from the 1999 film?
I think the cruelty in this iteration of the story is much more modern in the sense that things can go viral. When you’re talking about something from 1999, the whole issue behind the meaning of the word “viral” just didn’t exist. It does now, and you can embarrass somebody or shame somebody or destroy somebody with the push of a button in the modern age. So I think that takes the cruelty issue and cranks it up 10 notches in terms of how you can deploy it to hurt other people.
The characters this time around are a little older as well. For you, how does getting to age up the narrative a bit make the stakes for these characters more interesting?
When you age these characters up a little bit to college, it opens up a whole new world of things that you can do. When you’re able to broaden your palette of things that you can do in terms of storytelling, then you can really go a little bit deeper in terms of the themes that you’re exploring, whether it’s absolute power corrupts absolutely, as you always hear in history class, or themes of power imbalance. You get more opportunities to do that when the characters are aged up a little bit, but still young.
Your character, Chadwick, develops a relationship with his TA, CeCe (Sara Silva). There’s an age-gap and power imbalance happening here, but they handle their feelings with maturity. It’s arguably the healthiest relationship on the show. What would you like viewers to understand or takeaway from that relationship?
There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. I like to see people try and do things the right way, because this is a show where everybody else is doing everything the wrong way. I like the fact that this is a relationship that is a contrast to all of that — that these are two good people that have a genuine, pure connection and they want to make sure they go about it the right way. They’re not trying to hurt each other, they’re not trying to hurt anybody else. That’s what I want audiences to see — that that’s possible, that that exists in a world that seems chaotic and mean sometimes.
There is an interesting thread that fuels their romantic and intellectual attraction: a fascination with the history of fascism. What about that subject do you think appeals to them both?
(Laughs) I honestly think they just dork out on political science. I think that they’re both willing to be intellectually exploratory about seeing the pros and cons of whatever side that you’re on in terms of fascism, for example. I don’t know that they’re fascinated with fascism, per se. I just think they’re fascinated with playing devil’s advocate with each other. There’s something about that that excites them both, and that’s where they connect. Fascism is the vehicle that they use to poke each other and challenge each other and make each other think.
By the finale, Chadwick finds himself in a similar position as Ronald, who was caught having sex with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Kathryn. Here, Caroline (Sarah Catherine Hook) uses that to essentially report him for inappropriate conduct with a student. While you previously noted Ronald’s storyline was more directly about race, it’s hard to ignore the racial dynamics of this moment for him. But was that intentional?
Here’s the thing: I think that Professor Chadwick is written in such a way where race is not a factor. However, when you cast me and somebody who looks like me in that role, then you have a whole other level of stuff going on. I really agree with you that Professor Chadwick can’t just worry about, “Gosh, am I gonna be able to keep my job?” He has to worry about, “Am I gonna be treated fairly because of the way I look, and is this a factor in how my case is going to be perceived?” I think that’s just extra from having this character played by somebody that looks like me and that’s a great layer to lay on to what’s already a troubling situation.
Caroline threatened his relationship with CeCe and jeopardized his career at the school, which puts him in an interesting place heading into season two. Have you spoken with showrunners Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher about where things might go if you get a season two?
I don’t know anything about season two. I know nothing. We have not talked about that. I’m assuming that they have a plan, because they’re both very smart and they seem to have a plan for everything. So I’m pretty sure that they have something, locked and loaded, story-wise, for Professor Chadwick. I just haven’t heard it yet.
Chadwick, and some of your other recent roles including Polarity on Gen V, illustrate the ways that Black characters have evolved on screen in the YA genre. These are the kinds of characters — teachers, fathers — that we might not have seen so centrally back in the late ‘90s. What for you has changed for Black performers in the two decades between your two Cruel Intentions projects?
What’s exciting to me is that I didn’t see it growing up. On Gen V, I’m a Black father, and there are certain complexities that you can’t compare to any other father-son relationship. There’s certain things about being a Black father that are very specific and have to be dealt with in a different way. When you’re telling a story, you can’t just say, “Oh, this is just a dad and this is just a son.” There’s something very specific about a Black father and a Black son that has almost never been explored in TV and film, and I’m very, very proud that I’ve gotten a chance to do that. On Gen V, in particular, we really get into that on a very, very deep level. I mean, Chance isn’t with us anymore, and during season two, we don’t really take any shortcuts in digging into what it is to be a Black man and what it is to have that type of connection with your son and the things that you can and cannot protect him from. We really get into that in season two.
Do you feel like the needle has moved for Black actors in meaningful or necessary ways on sets or on screens for Black actors in that time?
I do feel like things are changing, but I will say that it’s not enough. The quality of the roles that we get now is far superior than when I first started in this business. When I first started, if you were a Black actor, most of what you got to do was comic relief or some type of sidekick, or you had to be some type of threatening presence. You really couldn’t break out of that box. Now, you can be a nerd, you can be gay, you can be whatever. As a Black actor, which is amazing, there’s this full range of who we are as human beings. We’re starting to see that with Black actors, which is phenomenal. That said, there’s not enough. There’s not enough in terms of quality. There’s lots of stuff that’s out there that’s Black, but it’s not three-dimensional. It’s not fully dimensional. It doesn’t show the full range of who we are. So even though things are better in terms of quality, now we need quantity.
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Cruel Intentions is streaming all episodes on Prime Video. Read THR‘s interview with showrunners Sara Goodman and Phoebe Fisher.
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