Daniel Ezra’s Full-Circle Goodbye to ‘All American’

Showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll didn’t hesitate about which director would handle the finale of the eighth and final season of The CW hit YA series All American. It was Daniel Ezra, the series star better known as Spencer James. Fittingly, he also, thanks to Okoro Carroll’s encouragement, made his directorial debut on the show.

For six seasons, fans followed not just Spencer’s dream of playing pro football from high school onward, but, most importantly, his growth as a young man facing enormous challenges as a kid from South Central Los Angeles — most notably growing up with his mother Grace (Karimah Westbrook) and brother Dylan (Jalyn Hall) without his biological father Cory (Chad Coleman) and being shot in season two. Taye Diggs’s Coach Baker and his family — particularly his son Jordan (Michael Evans Behling) and Olivia (Samantha Logan) — who later became Spencer’s wife — and their mother Laura (Monet Mazur), largely made that possible. As the show continued without Spencer James, Ezra came back to direct a new generation of Crenshaw and Beverly Hills High students in season seven.

“That was a no-brainer,” Okoro Carroll (or NK to those who know her well) tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I knew I wanted him to direct the series finale.”

Because Ezra was in Atlanta filming the Netflix series All the Sinners Bleed, timing posed a challenge, however. But Ezra, she says, made it clear that he had to do the series finale and he made it work.

THR caught up with the British actor and director to discuss whether All American provided the comfort The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air gave him growing up in England, the show’s pivotal role during COVID, how he landed the show from London and why the eighth and final season hit him so hard personally and more.

During All American’s first season, you shared how comforting The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had been for you as a youth growing up in England, and how you hoped to do the same with this show. Do you think you accomplished that?

I think so. I mean, I don’t want to compare us to The Fresh Prince. That exists in its own iconic bubble. But I do think that we provided something very vital during COVID, specifically. And I say that because I heard it from teachers and kids — kids that are older now that talk to me about what it was like when they were [younger] kids. I don’t think we’ll ever fully grasp what COVID did to these kids, and I think that All American airing at that time and being on Netflix at that time [helped a lot].

These kids, who basically had their community in school and friends sort of stripped from them in a very real way, were able to kind of live vicariously through us a little bit. It didn’t fix anything. It didn’t absolve anyone of anything. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on anyone’s shoulders, but I do think it allowed a window into something that wasn’t just gloom and doom for these kids, [like] the world around them probably felt like it was. And for me, I think Fresh Prince, when I was growing up, gave me a really aspirational idea of friendship and family and relationships and all those beautiful things. And, yeah, if we were able to do a modicum of that for these kids, I’d like to say we did [accomplish that].

How did this whole prospect of doing All American come about for you? Was coming to the States always a dream of yours?

My dreams were never location-based. I just was chasing great scripts and great characters. In drama school, we did everything. We did Shakespeare, Chekhov, Russian theater, German theater, American theater. We did a ton. So I just was really chasing the material that was good, whether that was in the U.K., America, wherever.

When [All American] came, I was living in London, and my agent says, “Hey, we’ve got this pilot, an American pilot about American football, we think you’d be really right for it.” That was all the information we had. And then I read it, and I read the characters like, “Oh man, this is really cool.” And then my first question was, “They know I can’t play American football, right?” Because I’m from England. And they were like, “We think that’s fine.” And I taped for it and what I learned was basically what every young Black kid in the world taped. And, yeah, didn’t hear anything. Then one night, my agent was like, “Hey, you need to be in LA tomorrow.” And it all just became this crazy whirlwind.

So, yeah, I would never have come to L.A. or Hollywood or anything like that without a job. I wouldn’t have come looking for anything. I was just going where the work was taking me. That’s kinda what happened. And then I went home right after we taped the pilot and then, after we did season one, I went home because you never know how long these things are going to last. I kept my apartment in London. Everything was the same. It wasn’t until we kind of exploded on Netflix on like season two or three that it was like, “Oh I’m going to be here for a while.” That wasn’t something I planned on or was trying to do in any way.

Why was directing the finale and appearing in it as Spencer James such a full circle moment or so important for you to do?

When I left in season six, I felt like I was done; I felt like Spencer’s journey was done. That was the impetus behind [me leaving]. I felt like we had done everything we had wanted to do with this character, and it was time for me to step aside. I didn’t realize until the finale that there was a goodbye that needed to be had that I didn’t really get to do in season six. I like to think of this episode as a bit of a victory lap and a glimpse into the future and that this is the happily ever after in my opinion.

I think by NK writing that there was this one last thing that Spencer had to do, which was to really say goodbye and see him start new… I feel like, for the fans and for me, to be able to have him start this next chapter and send him off into the sunset was right, and that’s one thing we didn’t get to do. So being able to do that, and then also to be the one to direct that, it was a real honor. It felt like this is how we had to end. It just felt inevitable. Against my better judgement, it just felt like this was always how it was supposed to be.

How gratifying was it to see Spencer and Jordan grow into the men that Coach Baker — Spencer’s father figure, and Jordan’s actual father — groomed them to be? Especially for you as a young man yourself.

When I was talking about things that we never got to do that I didn’t realize we needed to do, that was this. That’s basically the big scene I was talking about. Mike [Evans Behling who plays Jordan Baker, Spencer James’s one-time rival-turned-brother and brother-in-law] and I couldn’t even get through that scene. It was such an emotional moment for us, and I would say so much of that scene is Spencer and Jordan, but it’s also Daniel and Mike a little bit, because we were babies when we got here. We’d never been to LA before. We basically hid in his apartment for like the first year [or] two because it was just such a new, overwhelming experience.

And so to be able to come back and sit on that field and say those particular words was really overwhelming because Spencer and Jordan have evolved, but so have Mike and Daniel. And that felt like a celebration of those two relationships. It was multi-layered. So “gratifying“ is the right word. I walked off that field feeling so full and grateful for the journey that we had been on up until that point. … I just couldn’t imagine a better ending than that.

What are your fondest memories from this experience? Are there any moments over the course of the show that truly stand out for you?

I think seasons one and two hold a special place in my heart because that was pre-COVID, and everything changed after COVID. Suddenly we came back and it was masks and red zones and we couldn’t go near this person and that person. If I knew what was coming, I would have savored more of season one and two when we were just making a show. Once we got to three, and then four, and then it was COVID, and then it was the strike, and then people were leaving, and then Taye [Diggs left]. There was always something that we were fighting and grappling with. But seasons one and two were just smooth, and it was just fun; it just felt like kids playing.

The episode [Day Ones, season five, episode 14] about Olivia’s relapse was, I think, some of my proudest work [as a director] in terms of the shots we were able to pull off, the emotions we were able to bring in. I’m really proud of what we were able to do in that episode …. When I directed the 100th episode [“100%“ ], we shot at the Rose Bowl.

The first time I got to go to the Rose Bowl was season one, episode five [All We Got]. And I remember saying, “Wait, this is college,” and everyone was like, “Yeah.” I couldn’t believe this is where college players played. It just didn’t make sense. And then coming back over almost 100 episodes later to actually direct and be planning my own shots and having drones fly over and RAID machines. And [as Spencer James] being able to actually run routes on that field and being able to catch footballs on that field — that was also one of my biggest, proudest moments too. There are tons. I can go on forever, but those are the ones that come to mind.

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The final season releases on Netflix on October 6. All eight of seasons of All American will also be available to watch on The CW app.