[This story contains major spoilers from the Mayor of Kingstown season four finale.]
The introduction of Detroit crime boss Frank Moses, played by Lennie James, in Mayor of Kingstown season four was different than any prior foes faced by fixer Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) in the show’s fictional Michigan town full of maximum-security prisons.
Leading protagonist McLusky has taken on the Russian mob, Aryan Brotherhood gangs and Colombian drug dealers, but Frank Moses is a smoother and more calculating criminal. If the average person met Moses without knowing his line of work, one might assume he was a successful businessman from Detroit who has traveled the world: He can engage in conversation about the rarest of art, artifacts or vintage wine from around the globe and chat about vinyl jazz recordings from greats like John Coltrane, Miles Davis or Charlie “Bird” Parker.
Moses came to the town of Kingstown as a connoisseur of the finest things in life, yet he befriended and mentored one of the city’s most notorious gang leaders — Deverin “Bunny” Washington (Tobi Bamtefa), head of the Crips and a personal friend of McLusky’s. But that friendship would prove to have deadly consequences.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with James before the New Year to talk about the legend of season four’s most deadly, chameleon-like foe in Mayor of Kingstown, what led to his downfall in these final two episodes and what life might look like if Frank Moses is brought back for the newly renewed season five, which will be the final season for the Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon co-created saga at Paramount+. [Editor’s note: This interview took place before the season five renewal news was announced.]
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Lennie, when did Mayor of Kingstown first land on your radar?
I saw the first episode when it came out. I binged most of the first season, only not finishing because of work commitments, and I was always planning on going back. Being offered the part of Frank Moses gave me the opportunity to do that. So I went back and now I’ve seen every episode.
What drew you in most about the part of Frank Moses? What excited you about becoming this new main villain?
There was much more going on with him than just being a gangster. It was about the way he was playing the game. He had history. There was a legend of the man, and he showed you how he put the game into practice in how he was dealing with Bunny.
And you thought you were seeing how the game was played, but you didn’t always see the full picture, because there were bigger things he was keeping from Bunny, and secrets we were keeping from the audience. So it made for a character with nuance who had contradiction and surprise, and a knowledge that isn’t always attributed to guys doing the job that he’s doing.
Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead star Lennie James joined Mayor of Kingstown in season four as new villain Frank Moses, “a character with nuance who had contradiction and surprise,” he says.
Jeremy Parsons/Paramount+
When coming into the show, what insight did your co-creators Hugh Dillon and Taylor Sheridan share with you to kick off this process of playing Frank Moses?
I met with Hugh and showrunner Dave Erickson, and it was mostly meeting with Dave about who they wanted this guy to be. It was quite quick, just because of my work commitments. I finished on a job in London on a Saturday, got on a plane on Sunday and landed in Pittsburgh that Monday with my first day on set Tuesday. So we had to make decisions about the guy quite quickly. And actually, that worked to our benefit, because we had to make clear choices and that helped to catapult me into decisions I was going to make about the shape, the cut and the way he presented himself.
Does Frank Moses still see himself as a criminal, or does he think of himself as a more refined, world-traveled businessman who sometimes must do violent and unscrupulous things?
I think Frank sees the whole game as business. I think he sees his entrance into Kingstown as a venture capitalist move. He has moved in to take over a market that has been left unattended. One that needs organizing, restructuring and that needs to be made profitable in a way he believes it can be, in a way he believes it hasn’t been before. And I think that perception has come out of experience, not out of him wanting it to be. He treats it as business. His business is people.
Why Kingstown of all places? He definitely doesn’t seem happy to be there. He was “the man” in a big city such as Detroit.
Frank is at a point now where the expectation for a man of his generation in the game is that he’s got to be looking for the out. Most people, doing what he does, the game retires them. They don’t retire from the game. He’s in a unique situation whereby he has the possibility to walk away from the game. But in order to walk away, he needs a pension plan. He needs his investment to be turning over and to be making him money. And that’s what he set up before he came to Kingstown, which is just the next place on the list. He has no love for the place; he has no hate for the place. He’s not intending on staying. He’s intending on setting up his business, partnering with Bunny, giving Bunny day-to-day responsibility and then he creams off part of the profit. He oversees. He’s not a day-to-day man. He’s beyond that.
James as Frank Moses with Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky in season four.
Jeremy Parsons/Paramount+
Initially, it seemed as if he wanted to teach his new protégé the game at the next level, but as we got toward the middle of the season, he tried to have Bunny killed. What changed?
In coming to Kingstown, one of the things that Frank Moses realizes is that in order to really get the job done in the way that he wants to get the job done, he’s got to be to Bunny what Mike is to Bunny, and he can’t do that, because Mike is there, and he can’t take out Mike. So the only alternative, business-wise, is to take out Bunny. If he’s really going to get from this what he needs, he’s going to have to run it for a bit and bring somebody else in to be Bunny, because Bunny is too connected to the man. That was my reasoning.
Frank doesn’t mind having people killed for his agenda, but has avoided getting his hands stained with blood. This changes after Frank’s best friend and right-hand man, Lawrence “L.J.” James (Verlon Matthew Brown), is killed by one of Bunny’s henchmen, Lamar (Zuri James), in episode eight. Frank decides to then kill Lamar. What is going through Moses’ head where he is now willing to risk it all and pull the trigger himself in episode nine?
It was one of my favorite scenes to do. I think it’s one of the most important things about the reveal of who Frank Moses is, because it’s a moment where he absolutely speaks his truth. And the reason why he can speak his truth in that situation is because he knows at that moment that Lamar is about to die. And the truth that he speaks is, “You took from me something that I actually cared about.”
In this game, your right-hand man is more than a wife; more than a sister or brother — more than family. He’s there on your six, and he’s also there up in front of you. He is the first one through the door and the last one out. And each time, his main concern is you. Frank and L.J. had been friends from when they were boys. Now they’re grown men looking for the out. Frank’s just seen a possible end for him and it’s taken away, arguably, the only person Frank really cares about. In a game where you’re always navigating trust, the one thing he was sure about was L.J., and that’s been taken from him. I think he feels vulnerable. I think he feels angry, and I think he feels old-school rage! And he takes it out on Lamar.
What did you enjoy most about portraying Frank Moses? What did you despise, if anything, about the character?
I didn’t like, obviously, his deceitfulness. I didn’t like how he is ambiguous with the truth. As a fan of the show, I like Bunny. So I didn’t like what Frank was doing to Bunny. But on the other side, I found him never less than compelling. I found him challenging. I found him a huge amount of fun to play, because he’s always got the game two steps ahead. He’s playing chess with people, to a greater or lesser extent, who were playing checkers around him. He is, certainly to himself, always the smartest person in the room, and operates as if he is. I enjoyed playing someone who was good at what they do.
Co-creator Hugh Dillon as Ian with James as Frank Moses and Derek Webster as Stevie. If Frank returns for season five, James says, “He has never been incarcerated; he has never even been arrested. That breaks the legend of Frank Moses, and it would be interesting to see how he navigates that.”
Dennis P. Mong Jr./Paramount+
Tell me a little bit about your experience acting with Jeremy Renner.
I landed with very little prep, but having made some very clear decisions, my first scene was the first meeting in Mike’s office with me and Jeremy. And it was great because he comes fully prepared. He comes fully formed, ready to go. He is incredibly generous and open; it was easy. I say this often to young actors: When you do our job right, when you’ve done your homework and prep, when you come ready, the job is easy. Because you just have to give what you’re giving and receive what you’re receiving; it’s not much more complicated than that. That is my experience working with Jeremy — really, he is there for you. He expects and wants you to be there for him. And that absolutely worked for me. One of the major pluses of working on Mayor of Kingstown was working with Jeremy and Tobi [Bamtefa].
If you are brought back for season five, what do you think audiences will see from Frank Moses’ character, now that he has been caught by KPD in the act of murdering Lamar?
I have no idea about about what happens. Genuinely, I have no idea about what happens to Frank Moses next. The one thing I would say is that if he does have any part in the next season, the one thing they would have to navigate is the fact that Frank is somewhere he’s never been before. He has never been incarcerated; he has never even been arrested. So that breaks the legend of Frank Moses. And it would be interesting to see how he navigates that.
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Mayor of Kingstown is now streaming season four on Paramount+.
