‘The People V. O.J.’ Star Sterling K. Brown: Darden’s Daughter Has Reached Out To Me

Sterling K. Brown may have won over a new fan with his
portrayal of Christopher Darden on “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American
Crime Story.”

The actor appeared on Monday’s Access Hollywood Live to
discuss the hit FX anthology, and revealed that Darden’s daughter, Jenee Darden, recently
reached out to him about his work depicting the famed prosecutor.

“His daughter Tweeted me after the last episode and
said, “‘@sterlingkb1’ – that’s me on Twitter – ‘You look a lot like my
dad. Kudos to the makeup department,'” Brown told Billy Bush and Kit
Hoover. 

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He said he wrote back thanking her for watching, and added
that he’s also discovered he could have had a positive influence regarding her
opinion of the series itself.

“I saw a blog [Jenee] wrote where she was
hesitant to watch the show at first, but she read some interviews I had done
and said I’ve had some empathy for her father, so that made her a little more
open to the experience of watching,” he said. 

According to Brown, she also touched upon how difficult the
whole ordeal was for her and the Darden family.

“I think she said she’s enjoyed it, but at the same
time it was painful. She was 15 years old at the time, her father received
death threats, it was a very, very tough time,” he said.

“But she’s been watching,” he added.

As for his own reaction to Simpson’s acquittal, Brown
recalled being a freshman at Stanford at the time and watching the verdict with
a group of fellow students in his dorm. 

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“The unbridled enthusiasm of the black students was
just uncontainable,” he said.

“It was triumphant, like we had gotten off or something
like that. And the other 50 percent of the students in the dorm were looking at
us like, ‘What are you celebrating?'”

Brown explained that he hadn’t considered “the
socioeconomic” factors of the case while it was happening, like Simpson’s
wealth affording him a “dream team” of defense lawyers.

Instead, he said, he was drawing from his own experience
with police and law enforcement while growing up in St. Louis. 

“As I look back on it, it wasn’t a matter of me
celebrating whether or not [Simpson] was innocent or guilty. I don’t know if I
knew the answer to that question at that time. What I knew was that somebody
who looked like me was finally having the criminal justice system work in his
favor rather than against him,” he said.

“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”
airs Tuesday nights at 10 PM ET/PT on FX. 

— Erin Biglow