Brotherly Love/Jamal Hill(NEW YORK) — Keke Palmer, Cory Hardrict and newcomer Eric Hill Jr. all star in Brotherly Love, a film set at Philadelphia’s Overbrook High School, famous for its star graduates such as Wilt Chamberlain and Will Smith.
While Palmer portrays Jackie Taylor, who has ambitions of a music career before getting distracted by love, Hill plays her twin brother Sergio, a high school basketball star who struggles to deal with early fame. Hardrict portrays their older brother, June, who had to forfeit his own basketball dreams after the death of their father.
Hardrict tells ABC Radio he’s “the patriarch of the family,” who has to “step in them shoes to provide and take care of them by any means necessary.”
Hill adds, “Sergio and June have a plan. And the plan is that Sergio, being the number one player in the league as a result of the disciplinary practices that June has instilled in Sergio, the goal is to get to the NBA and you know, as June says, leave these streets where they belong in the wind. And in order to do so Sergio has to stay out of trouble and stay in school. But in that environment, it’s very difficult to stay on task.”
That environment is the streets of inner-city Philadelphia. It’s why the film had to be shot on location “in the hood,” Hill says.
“The house adjacent to the home that we used as the Taylor home had bullet holes still in it from a shoot out that had occurred about a week ago,” he adds.
It’s the underbelly of Philly where Hardrict’s character gets caught up as he tries to keep the family afloat financially.
“The dark side of my character comes from a place, I believe, of survival and necessity. It’s not like he’s a dark person, but it’s just like in the real world you got some guys, who the dark side comes out when they have to do things for their family or take care of guys in the community, but they have a loving heart,” he explains. “Sometimes in the inner cities you don’t have that many options to put food on the table, and you have to do it.”
Brotherly Love, also starring Macy Gray, Malik Yoba and Romeo Miller, hits theaters in limited release Friday.
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