In an industry where many actors insulate themselves from criticism and fan discourse, Aldis Hodge takes a different approach. For the SAG Award-winning actor and executive producer of Prime Video’s Cross, audience response is more than background noise — it’s a barometer of whether his work is resonating. “It informs me of what a fully formed and fully developed character is and looks like,” Hodge says. “That helps prepare me for the next couple of characters that I’m either going to play or write or create.”
Hitting the mark seems to be a theme for Hodge lately. Based on James Patterson’s bestselling novels, “Cross” was renewed for a second season before its first episode even premiered — a rare show of confidence from the streamer. Created by Ben Watkins, the series broke viewership records on Prime Video, earned Hodge a Gotham TV Award nomination for Outstanding Performance in a New Series, and reintroduced viewers to a legendary character with fresh depth and urgency.
In the title role, Hodge brings gravitas and precision to Alex Cross, a Washington D.C. detective and forensic psychologist chasing a killer who stages victims as historical murderers. But “Cross” is more than a cat-and-mouse procedural — it’s a meditation on grief, justice, and Black identity in a fractured system. Hodge’s portrayal is vulnerable and unrelentingly composed — a layered performance that underscores the benefits of long-form storytelling.
Following his turn in “City on a Hill”, where he also wore the producer’s hat, Hodge returns to the dual role of lead actor and executive producer — a responsibility he relishes. “I look for those rough patches that are difficult to navigate or haven’t been explored before,” he says. “We get to tackle subject matter that might not have been approached in this way before. And creatively, that’s what I live for.”
Hodge sat down with Awards Focus to reflect on his growth as a producer, the scene in “Cross” that challenged him most, why audience engagement drives his work, and what viewers can expect from the highly anticipated second season.
Awards Focus: The show received a second season renewal ahead of its premiere. What did you do to celebrate?
Aldis Hodge: I think we had finished all our press tour when the show premiered, and I just kind of kicked back. We had done so much work, and I’ll be honest with you, I was tired, man, so I just let it roll. I was very happy, though, with everything up to that point. I wasn’t nervous about anything. I had full confidence in what we had done, so I just kept it easy.
AF: Did you come into the casting process having to read for Alex or are you at a point in your career where you were offered the role?
Hodge: I would say that I was fortunate because Ben Watkins, the showrunner, had me in mind. I didn’t have to audition for this. There’s still some things I have to audition for. Some doors I still can’t get open, but this door was wide open for me.
Ben had an idea for who and what this character was. He tracked my history, my work, and oddly enough, we had initially met when I was like 14 years old. We were in a basketball league playing together. That’s back in the day when Ben was an actor. I didn’t realize that we’d had that history, and he had been just tracking my progress since then. It was very much fortuitous timing that this opportunity came about, especially at a time when my previous show had just ended and I was looking for the next right step to elevate. And this happened to be that.
AF: You were a producer on Showtime’s “City on the Hill”. In what ways did that prepare you for producing “Cross”?
Hodge: “City on The Hill”, that’s kind of where I made my bones. It was the formative years as far as experiencing and learning. As an executive producer on that show, we had a different experience in terms of a narrative story and things that we had to address. But understanding how to work amongst a group of experienced producers in that space to handle a property of that magnitude really prepared me for stepping into my space here on “Cross” as an Executive Producer to understand what their job really is. As an EP, you gotta take care of your people. You have to put your own personal bias aside and being one of the actors, you know, as somebody who’s a part of the cast, I can’t think of myself first, I have to think of the show first.
I have to think about what works for this character storyline that mixes with another character storyline, and how does that push the show forward? I’m also in a group of fantastic teachers. Ben is an amazing leader and an amazing teacher when it comes to how to run a show, but also how to lay out story and narrative. That’s the thing that I’m really most ambitious about as a producer, that I want to learn to be a better producer. I want to learn how to be a better storyteller. I would say “City on the Hill” was hard knocks, and that’s where I got my scraps up and learned, and it prepared me for stepping into to this with “Cross”.
AF: What was it like exploring Alex in this iteration of the character within the TV format, as compared to what having a film would’ve provided you as an actor to be able to explore different sides of him?
Hodge: The difference between film and TV, I would say, is that film truncates the narrative experience, both for the storyteller and for the audience, because you get this one small block of time to knock out a story. With TV, we get eight episodes, we get eight hours, we get a much longer runway to explore relationships, history, and a mindset of the characters. For me, the opportunity here was we got to present Alex Cross and the world of Alex Cross and really build that out. We got to show a completely different perspective of what people know from the books.
And that’s where our excitement comes in, because now we get to dig into the back history with Sampson and Nana Mama and the kids, and we get to understand and explore across Alex’s mindset from the personal side of dealing with him as a father and dealing with him as a family man, and just a human being. Not just the visage of this superlative detective. We get to understand who this man is internally and what makes him tick, but also what threatens him. That’s where we build and establish character and build a relationship with the audience.
AF: Generally, if you watch a show set in Washington, DC, you see the White House and iconic landmarks. This show presented the city so differently. What were the conversations with Ben about how the city would be viewed in the series, and particularly with the real-world stories that you would be exploring?
Hodge: Typically, when people see DC, we get to see, just like you said, we see maybe the White House and some politicians here and there. We don’t get to see DC culture. Right? We don’t get to see what Mumbo sauce is and what that means. We got to really tap in, especially when it came to like Ben’s Chili Bowl, and they allowed us to use that setting in our show. But that was heavily emphasized because we wanted to celebrate and acknowledge the people of DC and the culture of DC.
One of our producers, whose name is Umar White, is a DC native. So, he was the one who was really like, “Yo, this is what it is.” He was our guide, you know? And even when it came to certain terms, like there’s a moment in the script where Cross says to somebody he’s interrogating, “Hey, look, this is DC Slim,” because they say Slim out there, that’s their vernacular. That’s because Umar had checked the script, and he would explain what would actually be said. When we talked to people from DC, a lot of them said, “Yo, when you said Slim, I was in.” It’s the magnitude of those details that really makes the show. So Ben Watkins’ emphasis on culture is also what really heavily influenced the success of the show.
AF: What I loved about Alex Cross in the series is the intersection of Alex being a detective while being a father, and being a good person just trying to do his best. There’s a conversation in the second episode he has with the young boy, Tavie, on the porch, where Alex repeats that Tavie is a superhero after losing both his parents.
What was that moment like for you to film, especially working with the younger cast members, but repeating to this kid all he needs to know for the future that he should have?
Hodge: Man, that’s actually one of my favorite scenes. Shooting that scene was cold as hell, but that was amazing for me because it’s an incredibly difficult scene emotionally. And then morally, you’re trying to figure out what is the right thing to do in this situation, whereas as a detective, you’ve gotta get this information. You feel like you are also leaning on this child to give you the information you’re not getting from everybody else around. You’re trying to put the pieces together, but you also understand this kid has lost his world, and it’s about to change drastically. How do you help him as much as you possibly can?
Alex feels this, not only as a father, but he has also lost both of his parents. So, there’s an innate connection there that he’s trying to swim through, and as an actor, the challenge emotionally speaks to me because that’s what I look for. I look for those rough patches that are difficult to navigate or that have not been explored before, because we get to do that. We get to step on subject matters that maybe haven’t been addressed in this way. And creatively, that’s what I live for. In any capacity, whether it be directing, writing, acting, or producing, it doesn’t matter. What new areas can we explore, and how can we get there? Those are the areas that punctuate the DNA of the show. So for me, in that moment with that scene, I was so touched by it personally because of what it meant when Alex is telling him, “Yo, you’re a hero man.”
We all go through some things, and it speaks not only to the kid, it speaks to anybody in any particular stage of their life where they feel lost or they feel like they’ve experienced a loss. How do you get through it? You have to keep digging in and believing in yourself. You have the capacity to deal with any difficulty. I think that’s what the message was, and that scene to any audience member and I love that we got to explore it. And also, it was just creatively salient. It was amazing.
AF: It was very affecting as someone raised by a single parent from a young age and especially through your performance and Alex’s insistence on trying to make a lasting impact on him.
Hodge: Man. I was raised by a single parent too, so I feel you on it.
AF: What have you taken with you from playing Alex Cross that you’ve taken into your everyday?
Hodge: I don’t take much from my characters, personally, because I have a well-practiced discipline of keeping separation. I’ve been doing this job now for like, I’m coming up on 36 years now. I like to use my characters as a study. I treat my characters the same way I treat painting or my other business as an engineer or conceptual designer. I take the world around me, the experiences around me, and I explore the world through design. So I think that I’m designing characters.
What I take from it is how I’ve shaped this character, and then the feedback from the audience and how they respond to the character, to tell me if I’ve done a good job. That also informs what I can learn to do better. So, if there’s anything I’ve taken from Cross, it’s a sort of understanding of how people engaged with this character’s plight, how they connected, and it informs me of what a fully formed and fully developed character is and looks like. That helps prepare me for the next couple of characters that I’m either going to play or write, or create.
AF: What are you looking forward to for the second season, and what can you reveal about the story?
Hodge: [laughs] You know good and well I can’t reveal nothing.
AF: Always worth a try.
Hodge: What I can say is that there have been some early previews with audiences, and man, the feedback we’ve got is that people are loving it. A lot of people who love the first season are saying, “Yo, this is even better than the first one.” Ben jokes about that. He’s like, “Man, I’m happy, but at the same time, the first season was my baby.” But the second season goes har,d and all I can say is it is going to be a more elevated and wilder ride. I’ll just say y’all ain’t ready.
AF: That’s a perfect teaser.
Hodge: I wish I could tell you more. I really do.
But it’s good. Trust me, it’s really good.