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parker sawyer

Source: STARZ / Starz

The Pynk Posse of P-Valley has taken over Friday nights. It was a long two years of waiting for the STARZ hit series to return. Since its debut on June 3, we’ve been on a rollercoaster with Uncle Clifford and co. as the future of The Pynk remains uncertain.

For the show’s sophomore run, Parker Sawyers said we can look forward to the cast making their Chucalissa dreams come true. Andre Watkins, played by Sawyers, is treading unfamiliar waters when he decides to run for mayor of his beloved hometown. When he went home to Atlanta to get his wife’s take on his new goals, he found her in the middle of a bedroom romp with a coworker. To add insult to infidelity, she scoffed at his new political path.  When he confided in his almost-lover and friend Autumn Night, they bonded over having dreams at the expense of The Pynk.

“They do develop an even stronger friendship,” Parker Sawyers told MADAMENOIRE about Andre and Autumn. “If we thought it was just sort of a skin deep attraction…. this season that really might touch a soul. It definitely touches on intellectual attraction, a goal oriented attraction. They learn they can lean on one another and really draw support from one another.”

P-Valley is infamous for its provocative nature. While women putting their bodies on display is expected, the double standard is disappearing. Men bare just as much as the women on P-Valley, which evens the playing field. Sawyers said the show’s explicit nature depicts sexuality in its realistic nature, pushing American television towards the future.

“By the nature of their roles, these women are going to be naked. So it’s only fair that we would [do the same]. It made me think about all the movies I grew up on where there was unnecessary nudity from women. Why? When you kind of revision it, we didn’t even need that. I hope it makes men think twice, you know? If they’re just gonna write [these shows] and then [the female character] takes her top off, [then] he has to drop it too.”

Parker Sawyers and Andre Watkins are cut from different cloths. Watkins is a son of the Delta and left his humble Mississippi roots behind and didn’t plan on looking back. He’s returned in hopes of bringing a glitzy Casino in while pushing the Pynk Posse out. Sawyers was born and raised immersed in the political landscape. His mother was the deputy mayor of their hometown of Indianapolis from 1989 to 1991. He went on to study philosophy at Wabash College and then moved to London, where he currently resides. While the star and the character come from different walks of life, his philosophical background helps them connect. Studying philosophy helped him take his critical thinking and creativity to another level.

“I’ll do what most people might say this character would do or how he would act. But it’s very important for me to add that extra nuance, that extra thing,” he said. “I definitely bring that sort of deep thought and feeling into it and try to bring in nuance and not just what the stereotype of any character play would be.”

One of the millions of viewers that go down to the valley where the girls get naked every week is Sawyers’ mother. With all the lusty scenes and d*** swinging going on, I wondered what his mother thought when she tuned in.

“She was kind of concerned,” he said about her reaction. “She was like, ‘I don’t know about showing all that. Is that gonna hurt your career?'”

The nudity isn’t the hard part when it comes to playing Andre. Growing up in Indianapolis and living in London makes one thing about portraying Andre a bit difficult.

“Man, I’m trying to get that accent right,” he said. “And then I’ve lived in London for 14 years. So I mean, I was going by my ear.”

As the season goes on, we will get to see how Andre became the man he is.

“We’ll see more of Andre’s background. We’ll see maybe some flashbacks. So we really get a sense of where he came from.”

P-Valley airs every Friday on STARZ.

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