Straight Outta Compton star Jason Mitchell gets gritty in Netflix drama Mudbound

Jason Mitchell is a long way from Compton.

Since breaking hearts two years ago as AIDS-stricken rapper Eazy-E in N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, the affable newcomer has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after young actors, dexterously moving between comedy (Keanu), action (Kong: Skull Island) and drama (Detroit).

But with Mudbound (streaming on Netflix on Friday), Mitchell, 30, gets his most powerful showcase yet as Ronsel Jackson, a second world war veteran who returns home to rural Mississippi at the height of the Jim Crow era.

Living with his sharecropper parents (Rob Morgan and Mary J. Blige) on a farm owned by the white Henry (Jason Clarke) and Laura McAllan (Carey Mulligan), Ronsel finds an unexpected kinship with Henry’s brother, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), a fellow vet suffering from PTSD.

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Writer/director Dee Rees (Pariah), who adapted Mudbound from Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel, saw Compton and cast Mitchell without an audition.

“To have someone think of me for this calibre of material – that’s a whole different story,” Mitchell says. Reading the script, he was drawn to Ronsel’s compassion and resolve, as well his “bulletproof” friendship with Jamie, which is tested in the film’s harrowing climax, when Ronsel is lynched by Klansmen.

The violent, stomach-churning scene is “the slap in the face that the entire film is built on,” Mitchell says. Despite the physical and emotional intensity of the shoot, “I was excited about it, because there are a lot of situations in our past that we just don’t want to talk about or recreate, and this scene was all of that. Dee told me that she wanted to make it artsy and safe, and I trusted her. I feel like we did history justice.”

Although Netflix has struggled to break into the Oscar race apart from documentary categories, Mudbound might be a candidate to buck the trend. The film, which the streaming service bought for US$12.5 million at January’s Sundance Film Festival, boasts 94 per cent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and half of the prognosticators on awards site Gold Derby predict a best-picture nomination.