In this interview feature for Letterboxd Journal, I interrogate the creator of the most film nerd-leaning series in years, the drench-in-noir Sugar, starring Colin Farrell as a film noir-obsessed private eye in LA living out his own film noir story. 

Generally speaking, we don’t cover TV at Letterboxd, but if there were ever a series that demanded our attention, it is Mark Protosevich’s new private-eye drama Sugar, which is positively oozing with a deep love for all things cinema.

It stars Colin Farrell as John Sugar, a high-end private eye with a mysterious past who, against the wishes of his handler Ruby (played by Kirby, now a mononym after previously being credited as Kirby Howell-Baptiste), agrees to take on a job from a high-powered Hollywood mogul (James Cromwell, channeling Sterling Hayden in The Long Goodbye and John Huston in both Chinatown and real life), whose beloved granddaughter is missing.

In addition to taking place in Los Angeles, and concerning a family that includes three generations of (fictional) Hollywood talent, Sugar really sells its celluloid bonafides by having its titular character be a total movie obsessive. He is both in a film-noir story and always talking about film noir. Although highly adept at contending with the messiness of contemporary criminality, Sugar seems to take all his cues from old movies.