For Corey Hawkins, Making 'The Man in My Basement' Was a Marathon in More Ways Than One

Corey Hawkins is known for films like Straight Outta Compton, In the Heights, and The Color Purple, along with his Tony-nominated work in plays like Six Degrees of Separation and Topdog/Underdog . But Hawkins says his new film, The Man in My Basement, made him go deeper than he ever had before—and not just because he’s in almost every frame of the film.

The thriller, directed by Nadia Latif in her feature debut, is an adaptation of Walter Mosley ’s novel, following a man (Hawkins) living in Sag Harbor who is put in a tricky situation when a white stranger ( Willem Dafoe ) asks to rent his basement for the summer. Hawkins plays Charles Blakey, who is grappling with the loss of his mother and fighting to keep their ancestral home.

Hawkins and Latif, an accomplished theat