Why Samuel L. Jackson Worked for 12 Years to Produce ‘The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey’

variety.com:

Angelique Jackson As Samuel L. Jackson took the microphone to introduce the screening of “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” the acting icon reflected on the 12-year journey to get the limited series made.“This was a project that’s been eating me up for 10-12 years, and I’ve been chasing it and running it to different places trying to get it done,” Jackson told the crowd inside the Regency Bruin Theatre in Westwood. “Fighting to keep it from being an hour and a half movie or two hours; you can’t tell this story in that time.

But to get here is amazing. They say ‘Hollywood is a place of dreams,’ and this is a dream come true.”In the Apple original series, Jackson stars as the 91-year-old Grey, a man slipping deeper into dementia, who sets off to solve the mysterious death of his nephew (Omar Benson Miller) with the help of new friend and caretaker Robyn (Dominique Fishback).

The six-episode series is based on the 2010 book by celebrated author Walter Mosley, who adapted the work alongside Jackson.

As a personal note to viewers with a family member with dementia, Jackson referenced his late mother’s struggle with the condition.“If you’ve been touched by this disease, like I was, I know sometimes it’s going to be a little tricky,” he admitted. “But if you stay with [the series], you’re going to take a marvelous ride, through a man who lived a life well-lived, and we’re going to solve a mystery… See what a man with dementia does trying to be a detective.”Though the source material has moments of darkness, the mood was light on the elegantly-constructed carpet as the show’s cast and Jackson were joined by his wife and fellow executive producer LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and their friends Magic and Cookie Johnson, as well as Do.