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Truly, it has never been more sunny in Philadelphia on television. In recent months, the City of Brotherly Love has played host to two big televised events: the Philadelphia Eagles’ dominant victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX and the long-awaited crossover episode between proud Philly comedies Abbott Elementary and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Things have been so sunny in Philadelphia, in fact, that the city’s gritty citizens (and Gritty citizens) are undoubtedly looking forward to some cloudier weather to re-establish their hard-bitten bona fides. Thankfully, that cloudier weather is set to arrive with Apple TV+ crime drama Dope Thief.
Based on a 2009 novel by Dennis Tafoya, Dope Thief follows Philly friends Ray (Brain Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura) as they make a decent living posing as DEA agents to hustle drug dealers. They soon get in over their heads, however, after pinching a major narcotics ring. Filmed in and around Philly, Apple TV+’s series puts the city and its surrounding environs to good use, continuing a welcome trend of TV crime dramas branching out from the usual locations, just as HBO’s Mare of Easttown also did with the Delaware Valley. According to Dope Thief creator and showrunner Peter Craig, the story’s sense of place is a major part of its appeal.
“It’s Philly. It doesn’t hide itself, you know? Everybody tells you what they think immediately. You get all that texture in the show. These guys are so much from there that you couldn’t tell the story without it. Philly’s still got the right kind of grit. It’s still got people who are completely real and protecting their neighborhoods.”
Craig would know about “the right kind of grit,” having previously penned the screenplay for Ben Affleck’s Boston-set crime drama The Town and 2022’s The Batman.
“Boston’s got a little too gentrified in some sections. Even when we were doing The Town, we were really doing a version that was really about eight years earlier than when we were saying it was.”
The cast concurs with Craig’s estimation, with Theresa Bowers actress Kate Mulgrew asserting: “It’s a funny place, Philly. You know, it’s North meets South. The story couldn’t have happened anywhere else. I found Philadelphia to play a very, very important character in this series.”
Other important characters in the series, of course, include the two leads: Moura and Henry, both of whom currently on ascendant career paths in film in television. Moura was introduced to most English-speaking audiences by playing drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Narcos and just starred in Alex Garland’s Civil War. Henry recently wrapped up his multi-season role of rapper Paper Boi on Atlanta and is set to continue his role as Miles Morales’ father in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. For Moura and Henry, the biggest appeal of Dope Thief was one another.
Moura came to the role after shooting already began (THR has reported original co-star Michael Mando was fired for a violent altercation with another actor on-set), creating an unusual dynamic for two characters who are supposed to be life-long friends.
“Brian called me and I really liked the conversation that I had with him,” Moura says. But [before our first scene] I was like ‘We don’t know each other. Can we have like, 10 minutes together?’”
After the pair absconded to a green room to share some basic biographical facts, they reunited in Ray and Manny’s white panel van to get to work.
“We had a very beautiful moment in there. Then when we went to the set to shoot the scene in a van, somehow we were very connected. I can say now that Brian is a brother to me. We became really, really close. I’m gonna direct him in my next film. We established a beautiful friendship.”
OK, maybe it really is always sunny in Philadelphia. Even on a gritty crime drama.
The first two episodes of Dope Thief are available to stream on Apple TV+ now. New episodes premiere each Friday through April 25.
The post Apple TV+’s Dope Thief Continues The Philly Crime Drama Legacy appeared first on Den of Geek.
