Oz: Harold Perrineau on HBO Series’ 25th Anniversary, Reboot Rumors

If there’s anyone who knows anything about the grim uncertainty of purgatory, it’s actor Harold Perrineau starring in three shows where time spent in those environments felt like an eternity in Oz, Lost, and the current horror mystery series From. While promoting the EPIX series, the actor spoke with TV Insider about the legacy of the revolutionary HBO prison drama that ran from 1997-2003, if a reboot is possible, and if he would return to serve as narrator. During the HBO series created by Tom Fontana, Oz is short for the Oswald Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison where the lives of inmates and staff are the focus of dealing with sociological issues of incarceration in the criminal justice system. Perrineau played Augustus Hill, an inmate serving his own sentence that also serves as an anthology-style narrator breaking down episode themes.

“[The way ‘Oz’ pushed boundaries as a drama] was exciting and interesting and scary, and nobody knew where it was gonna go,” Perrineau said. “I feel really lucky to have been able to be part a part of that, we had many, many times where executives from HBO would walk in, and they’d look at whatever we were doing, just kind of shake their head. ‘They’re on a leash? Whatever it is, just let them do it.'”

Perrineau credited how HBO’s creative autonomy allowed Oz to thrive. “That was a really interesting thing to watch, but they were letting us experiment. I’m really glad that we would get to experiment with an actual topic that makes sense in this country that we live in. You know, prison reform, what prison is about, what it does versus what we might want it to be, and how it affects us,” he said. “We certainly had to be entertaining, but we could also point the finger at or point an eye toward some of these things. Especially for me, for the community I grew up in, it felt really good to be able to say something about it. Not just sitting around and talking about it, but actually having a real look at this. Let’s see how that happens. Let’s see what violence really looks like. For all those people who think violence is cool, or whatever, like, we got to show you ‘yeah, no, no, this isn’t cool. This is scary shit here.’ So we should remember that. It’s really good to be part of something that says something.”

When it comes to whether Oz could be rebooted today, “I think we still have tons of questions about what we’re doing with the prison system here in this country. I think we still have questions about how it affects the African American community; we have questions about how it affects the American community as a whole,” Perrineau said. “So I think there could always be a fresh reboot of ‘Oz.’ I mean, until we figure out what we’re doing [and] when we need it. Look, it’s still a question for me. There are times I’m really like, ‘prisons work.’ And there were times where I’m like, ‘yeah, lock them up,’ because I’m personally affected by it. I recognize that the questions live in me as much as they live in our country.”

Whether Perrineau would return, “I wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis, but I would certainly be honored if anybody found a way to rewrite Augustus Hill back into it just a little bit,” he said. “But, you know, since then, I’ve done a couple of a number of different things in prisons. And I’ve said to myself, I don’t need to be in a real or fake prison, I don’t think, anymore my whole life.” For more, including the possibilities in play for season two of From and reflecting on his time on Lost, you can check out the complete interview here.