Exclusive: Tyrese Gibson Explains How ‘The System’ Has An Underlying Message Of How Exploitative America’s Private Prison System Is
In The System, Tyrese Gibson plays the role of Terry Savage, a retired marine who returns home from combat only to find out that conflict will be the only chance he has of survival.
After being caught by police for robbing drug houses in order to pay for his daughter’s life-threatening healthcare, he’s offered a deal where his daughter’s medical needs would be met as long as he agrees to infiltrate a private prison and expose the corruption that’s headed by sadistic warden Lucas Fisher (Jeremy Piven).
When Savage gets to the prison, he befriends Bones (Terrence Howard), an OG of the prison who teaches him unique martial arts skills for when he has to fight for his life in The Dungeon against other inmates.
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We’re not going to spoil the rest of the movie, but it’s the abuses that go on in the prison system, particularly private institutions which lack many of the regulations that governmental ones do, that inspired Gibson to take on the role of Terry Savage. During an exclusive interview with BET.com, the famed actor explained that there isn’t enough help for veterans when they arrive home from duty.
“I just think men and women that served – they come home thinking I put it all on the line for you in this country, on behalf of America,” he says. “Then they come home and they're waiting in five hour lines just to get medicines. They don't have their insurance, they don't have anything pertaining to their mental health in place that can help veterans or young men and women that served to come home and feel like they're going to be taken care of.
“If you see five, six people blow up in front of you, you can't come back from Iraq or overseas and feel like your life is ever going to be normal,” he continues. “And so I wanted to point out the injustices around the way our men and women who serve are treated.”
The same goes for the lack of attention to what goes on in prisons all across America. And while The System may be an extreme case of the gross abuses that happen in them, Tyrese says there’s an underlying message in his latest film akin to “hiding the medicine inside of food.”
“It's modern-day slavery. They basically got Black men in there day and night working for pennies on the dollar, or nothing at all,” he explains, noting that the movie was actually filmed in a real private prison in Mississippi. “It's something about the concept of Black people being locked away in cages that have been going on for many, many years, and there's a lot of sensitivities around that.”
Gibson adds: “I think there's something that's been going on for a very long time, the imprisonment and enslavement of Black men inside the prisons. And I think if I can have one person lose a little sleep over these injustices, then that's the goal.”
The System is also a full-circle moment for Gibson. He met Dallas Jackson, the film’s writer and director, through legendary screenwriter John Singleton, who, before he died in 2019, suggested to Jackson that Gibson play the lead role in the movie. It’s something Tyrese says is very emotional for him.
“I think what I miss the most about John is like, before I start any movie, I would be on the phone talking to him, while I'm filming, whoever I'm working with and he was just such a genuinely happy person to know that he believed in someone and their career or their livelihood or their life has been changed all because of his opinion,” he said of Singleton, whom he worked with in films like Baby Boy, Four Brothers and Fast and Furious. “It's really just interesting that this man emptied himself of all of his visions and ideas, and used his platform to change everybody's life.”
The System opened in theaters on Friday (October 28). It stars Gibson, along with Howard, Piven and Lil Yachty. It will be available for digital consumption on November 4.
