‘Government Cheese’ Cast Details “Absurd, Surreal, And Quirky” Series

“Absurd, surreal, and quirky” is how leading actor David Oyelowo describes his new comedy series, Government Cheese, to VIBE when prompted to sum the show up in three words. His leading lady, Simone Missick, follows up with “unique, refreshing, and spiritual” to add anticipation for the series’ debut.

Premiered on Apple TV+ earlier this week, the original show also stars Jahi Di’Allo Winston and Evan Ellison as their very different sons, with Oyelowo and Missick playing their parents.

“I think that Astoria is the kind of mom that every successful Black man, athlete, artist, actor, when they get up on stage and they accept that trophy or that award and they thank their mother and they say, ‘She’s the real MVP,’ I think that Astoria is the prototype of that,” Missick explains of her character when asked what the fictional Chambers household adds to the canon of Black television families.

“She is a mother who raises her sons without limits. She doesn’t tell them who they need to be. She just allows for them to be. And so you have one son who is a certified genius, who wants to pole vault, and she sees no issues with that.”

She continues, “And you have another son who wants to become a Chumash Indian, and she’s like, ‘You live your best life, son.’ I think that in the span of television mothers and fathers, I haven’t seen that. And so I love that we get to present that set in a time period where we think every mother during that time raising Black sons was afraid or downtrodden or put upon. You get to see a woman who is not only supporting her children, but she’s also living, trying to achieve on her own. And so I think that she’s unique.”

Oyelowo adds, “I think with Hampton Chambers, he’s a character that I hope we’re adding to the canon who defies definition because he’s just so many things at the same time. He’s so many contradictions. We’ve seen an incarcerated Black man before, but I don’t know that we’ve seen one who decides to invent a self-sharpening drill while in prison and is going to be the means by which he hopes to give his family a better life.”

The VIBE cover star elaborates, “We’ve seen fathers on screen, but have we seen one who is this in love with his family, but also this in love with himself all at the same time?”

Government Cheese takes place in 1969 in San Fernando Valley, Calif. The ensemble cast also includes Jean-Michel Richaud, London Garcia, Djilali Rez-Kallah, Bokeem Woodbine, Jeremy Bobb, Louis Cancelmi, Julien Heron, Louis Ferreira, Thomas Beaudoin, and Kyle Mac, with John Ortiz and Adam Beach.

“I relate to Bootsy a lot. I relate to his level of introspection,” Woodbine tells VIBE. “He is somebody who tries to find the answers from within as opposed to always looking without for whatever the answer is. And he’s somebody who has some tenacity after having been a combat veteran who’s come back to America and kept his mind pretty much intact. I can relate to both those things, being a free spirit and to being somebody who has faced challenges and managed to be a relatively decent guy still.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Woodbine shares, “I love the depiction of an African-American family on the West Coast in the late sixties that is not necessarily immersed in the civil rights struggle. And I love the surrealistic, almost magical tone of it, and we rarely get to see ourselves like that. As people in the community, we rarely get to see ourselves in this quirky, surrealistic, magical fashion, and I just really love that about our show.”

Government Cheese is written, executive produced, and co-showrun by creators Paul Hunter and Aeysha Carr, with Hunter also serving as director. In addition to starring, Oyelowo executive produces under his Yoruba Saxon banner. The series is also executive produced by Charles D. King and Jelani Johnson for MACRO Television Studios, and Ali Brown executive produces for Ventureland.

“I really loved when we were shooting the family scenes. There was one time where Paul came in playing music, he was kind of dancing around the room, and in between setups, keeping the spirit alive. That was a really fun core memory,” reflects Winston of their time creating the series.

Take a look at the Government Cheese trailer and VIBE’s full interviews with the cast above.