Podcast Summary: ‘Love, Brooklyn’ from Director Rachael Holder and Actor Nicole Beharie

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart, WNYC
Air Date: August 27, 2025
Guests: Director Rachael Holder, Actor Nicole Beharie

Main Theme

This episode dives into Love, Brooklyn, a new film exploring gentrification, personal legacy, and adulthood through intersecting relationships in a changing Brooklyn. Host Alison Stewart speaks with director Rachael Holder and lead actor Nicole Beharie about crafting a nuanced, place-based love story fueled by decisions, community ties, and the ever-present struggle of holding onto the past versus embracing change.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting and Plot: Brooklyn as a Character

• Love, Brooklyn follows three main characters navigating life, love, and transformation in Brooklyn.
  • Roger (Andre Holland) is a writer struggling to capture the story of gentrification.
  • Casey (Nicole Beharie) is a gallery owner trying to sustain her inherited neighborhood space.
  • Nicole (DeWanda Wise), a widowed single mother, is embracing personal boundaries and new beginnings amid ongoing loss.
• The film deliberately avoids iconic, "cliché" Brooklyn visuals, focusing instead on parks and neighborhood spaces that feel authentic to the director.
  • Rachael Holder (15:58): “We were sort of finding the spaces that were beautiful to us…there were unexpected places, I guess, unexpected to other people…Brooklyn has the most beautiful parks.”

2. Nuanced Relationships and Dynamics

• The movie centers on the interplay between the three leads, especially the way Roger moves between Casey and Nicole.
  • Rachael Holder (05:32): “This movie felt like two women deciding whether or not they wanted to be with a man…they were deciding in front of him…they were just being really honest.”
  • The "power" in the romantic dynamic belongs to the women, overturning genre expectations.
• The two women, while similar in some ways, are at different life stages with contrasting emotional boundaries:
  • Nicole Beharie (08:08): “Nicole…the character…is a mother…they have very strict boundaries, whereas Casey and Roger…the boundaries are sort of nebulous and a little mushy.”
  • Nicole is portrayed as grounded, decisive, and forward-looking; Casey grapples with uncertainty tied to her changing community and personal legacy.

3. Art, Legacy, and Gentrification

• Casey’s gallery is both a symbol of familial inheritance and of community shifts.
  • Nicole Beharie (17:22): “Legacy is…more about that even than the selling of art. It ends up being about something more than, like, skin deep.”
• The impact of gentrification is a thematic undercurrent, directly acknowledged in the film’s dialogue:
  • Roger (03:00, film clip): “Look at all this obscene money that’s flowing in, right? ...it’s just erasing the culture.”

4. Production Anecdotes: Authenticity & Adaptability

• A key scene between Roger and Casey was shot outdoors because the original location fell through, illustrating the film's improvisational spirit and how production constraints can yield memorable cinematic moments.
  • Nicole Beharie (14:27): “It was a crazy day…we ran out of light, hence the Prada boots…It tells the story even though there are bits missing.”

5. Themes of Change: “Looking Back” vs. Moving Forward

• A biblical reference to Lot’s wife (turning into a pillar of salt by looking back) underlines the emotional tension in the story – do the characters cling to the past or embrace the future?
  • Nicole Beharie (20:44): “This story about becoming a pillar of salt when you’re saved from a thing…Or when something is changing…I just love that bit of allegory.”
  • This reflects broader questions of change for the characters, for Brooklyn, and even for the artists making the film.

6. Creating the Film: Art, Collaboration, and Growth

• The film’s art direction was built around works by artists of color, curated to evoke lived-in, real spaces even on a tight budget.
• Rachael Holder discusses the continual rewriting and evolution inherent in feature film directing, as compared to television work:
  • Rachael Holder (22:23): “Feature directing feels like a song…one of the biggest lessons is the constant rewriting…Writing is rewriting, and especially in filmmaking.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Gentrification:
  • Roger (03:00, film clip):
    “It’s just erasing the culture…it’s devolving.”
• On Casting Nicole (the character) and the real Nicole (Beharie):
  • Nicole Beharie (06:33):
    “Nicole is by the wonderful DeWanda Wise. It gets hard. She’s incredible in this. So I just want to make—I’m gonna throw that in there.”
• On Adult Growth:
  • Rachael Holder (13:15):
    “I feel like adults, we’re always sort of coming of age. We’re always growing. Hopefully we don’t stop doing the work until it’s over.”
• On Art as Legacy:
  • Nicole Beharie (17:22):
    “Legacy is…more about that even than the selling of art…being anchored there.”
• On the Central Allegory:
  • Nicole Beharie (20:44):
    “This story about becoming a pillar of salt when you’re saved from a thing, or when something is changing…I just love that bit of allegory.”

Timestamps of Important Segments

• [03:00] – Film clip: Roger on gentrification and cultural loss
• [05:32] – Director Rachael Holder on women’s agency in the film’s relationships
• [08:08] – Nicole Beharie on differences between her character and Nicole (DeWanda Wise)
• [13:15] – The notion of "coming of age" for adults
• [14:27] – Production anecdote: moving a key scene outdoors
• [15:58] – Holder on showcasing a “real” Brooklyn and filming in parks
• [17:22] – Beharie on legacy, art, and family
• [20:44] – Beharie on the symbolism of looking back (Lot’s wife allegory)
• [22:23] – Holder on the creative process and lessons from her directorial debut

Tone and Language

The episode maintains a warm, intelligent, and forthright tone, with both guests expressing gratitude for creative collaboration and direct honesty about the challenges and joys of filmmaking. Humor and camaraderie emerge around production mishaps and character mix-ups, while heartfelt moments underline the themes of community, memory, and growth.

Takeaway

Love, Brooklyn is presented as a richly layered story about much more than romance: it’s a meditation on change, community, creative struggle, and the persistence of culture in a city that’s always evolving. Through the voices of its makers and the lives of its characters, the episode offers a portrait of Brooklyn anchored in both specificity and universality—a space for discovery, loss, and new beginnings.