Aldis Hodge Talks Showtime's ‘City On A Hill’: This Is Much More Than A Crime Drama

Though billed as a crime drama, Showtime’s new hit series City on a Hill is really a show about human nature. This is according to Aldis Hodge, who stars alongside Kevin Bacon.

The one-hour drama series has some heavy hitters behind it, including Executive Producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They take us back to Boston in the 1990s, when the town was rife with local law enforcement agencies plagued by corruption, widespread racism and violent crime. The 10-episode drama series premiered Sunday, June 16 and it’s already garnering rave reviews.

Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Bacon once again plays an FBI agent, though this time his Jackie Rohr is as crooked as they come. Bacon also played Ryan Hardy, a former FBI agent in The Following. His character in that show was pulled back in to solve one more case after a notorious serial killer he apprehended years earlier escaped from death row. This time he joins forces with Hodge to take down a gang of murderous criminals.

Screen Actors Guild award winner Hodge (Underground) plays the new Assistant District Attorney, Decourcy Ward, who comes from Brooklyn wanting to uproot the corrupt system in Boston only to be faced with a plethora of obstacles.

The two men form an unlikely alliance aiming to take down a gang of armored truck robbers from Charlestown in a case that ultimately subverts the entire criminal justice system of Boston. “With Decourcy and Jackie, they don’t like or trust each other and their relationship is always on the edge, but they need one another,” said Hodge in a recent interview.

The idea of the show, Hodge explains, is inspired by an amalgamation of fact and fiction that originally began with an idea from Affleck who’d just finished his film The Town. “There was the city of crime lust of it all, in addition to inspiration from the real life ‘Boston Miracle’."

The Boston Miracle was also referred to as Operation Ceasefire and the Boston Gun Project. The plan was based on the work of Criminologist David M. Kennedy and his 1996 problem-oriented policing initiative implemented in Boston, Massachusetts. The program was specifically aimed at youth gun violence as a large-scale problem.

"It’s a mash-up of elements inspired by those occurrences from a time when community leaders and politicians came together to decriminalize Boston,” says Hodge. His character is based on a real man, Ralph Martin. “He came to Boston to shut crime down.”

Hodge describes Decourcy as a “well-meaning human being” but adds he’s challenged with exploring his own flaws. “He does mean well but understands that the criminal justice system there has some issues. The people he works with move chess pieces around in some not fair ways. This is what he’s exposed to. Though he wants to shut crime down in Boston, he plays by his own rules. What he has to explain for the rest of the season is: How crooked am I willing to go to achieve what I need to at the end of the day? And, how do I play their game by my own rules?”

Hodge adds what he loves about this show is the duality of every character and how each is forced into their own set of challenges. “There’s always a complicated way to describe this show but at its core, it’s really about human nature and the cost of human survival versus the consequences of one’s actions. They’re all doing what they have to do to survive.”

And, he says, this show is about much more than the crimes taking place. “What I love is that these characters are all playing off the duality of their good versus evil nature. It’s really at its core a human story about how people are doing the best they can to survive this world and how their choices and actions affect their home lives, their marriages and children. It really digs deep into the flaws of the human condition.”

Some of the characters in this show commit heinous acts, including cold-blooded murder. What the writers have done so brilliantly is to show that despite these acts, these men aren’t one dimensional. “When these men rob these armored trucks, for instance, it’s a duality of doing what they have to do to get back to their families,” explains Hodge. “They’re doing this to feed their families, not to be evil and not because they enjoy it. We don’t give the audience the answers here, we give them a question. We want them to go beyond the surface level, beyond the black and white into the gray area. This show is all gray.”

With Decourcy, adds Hodge, we don’t know at first if we like him. “I love that so much. I enjoy being kept on my toes. I honestly don’t know where he’s going to go. He’s a part of what makes the moral fiber of the show but who knows what he’ll do. I think the finale is going to shock the audience. It’s definitely not what will be expected.”

Rounding out the cast are Jonathan Tucker (Kingdom), Mark O’Brien (Halt and Catch Fire), Lauren E. Banks (Instinct), Amanda Clayton (Tyler Perry’s If Loving You Is Wrong), Tony Award nominee Jere Shea (Passion), Kevin Chapman (Brotherhood) and Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan).

City on a Hill was created and executive produced by Chuck MacLean (Boston Strangler) with Emmy winner Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street) serving as showrunner and executive producer. Also serving as executive producers are Emmy nominee Jennifer Todd (Jason Bourne, Memento), Academy Award winners Affleck and Damon, Michael Cuesta (Homeland) and Barry Levinson (Rain Man). James Mangold (Logan, Walk the Line) serves as consulting producer and Bacon and Jorge Zamacona are co-executive producers.

‘City on a Hill’ airs Sundays on Showtime at 9:00 p.m. /8:00 p.m. CST.