Don Cheadle stars as Maurice “Mo” Monroe in Showtime’s newest comedy, Black Monday. The show’s premiere on Sunday sets back to one of Wall Street’s worst stock market crashes that took place worldwide on October 19, 1987. The show was created by Jordan Cahan and David Caspe.
The opening scene showed someone falling off from the roof of the New York Stock Exchange during Black Monday. In a comedic show, the series also shares how serious things had gotten at the time. “That moment is not played for a joke,” Caspe emphasizes. “We’re not saying it’s funny that that character jumped and died. It is a half-hour comedy, but this is played real and dramatic and kicks off the mystery. I guarantee you that at the end of the season, the person who dies will not slip on a banana peel at the top of the building.”
Cheadle comes off of the big screen with his successful movie, Avengers: Infinity War where he played James Rhodes/War Machine. As he shifted over to the half-hour comedy, Cheadle lets us in to the mind of his character, Mo.
“He always has an angle, but it’s not necessarily the right angle,” Cheadle says of Mo’s convoluted plan. “Shoot, ready, aim. That’s Mo. If he was a poker player, he would rather have all his money in the middle and wait on the cards to come and make his hand good, rather than know he has a great hand before going in.” Mo’s way of thinking and doing things may come off as confusing and mind-boggling to viewers, but that’s just how he rolls.
Cheadle says, “Mo’s like, ‘This is gonna work, just on the strength of my personality and because I said it is.’ I mean, that’s not how the world works, but good luck!”
Black Monday airs Sundays at 10/9c on Showtime.