Manhunt Deadly Games star Kelly Jenrette on telling the FBI’s story

Kelly Jenrette plays Stacy Knox in Manhunt Deadly Games.

Manhunt Deadly Games tells the Olympic Park Bombing story from two points of view—that of Richard Jewell, who was accused of the crime, and that of the FBI agents who investigated Jewell before locating real bomber Eric Rudolph.

It’s an admirable balancing act for the series, which continues to air on CBS, having moved to Saturday nights starting Oct. 24. How do you portray the FBI agents fairly, being that they were people trying to find a terror suspect, but wreaked unintentional havoc in Richard Jewell’s life?

To answer that question and others, Precinct TV spoke to Kelly Jenrette, who portays FBI agent Stacy Knox in Manhunt Deadly Games. Get to know more about Kelly and her character here then catch the next two Manhunt Deadly Games episodes this Saturday on CBS starting at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

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Precinct TV: What was your connection to Manhunt Deadly Games? Was there a particular something that you identified with in the material?

Kelly Jenrette: I am originally from Atlanta, born and raised. I wasn’t at Centennial Olympic Park when the bombing occurred, but I have a picture of my mom holding the Olympic torch and I’m standing beside her. My brother was a part of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics. It immediately took me back to that moment in time.

I initially was going to be a forensic psychologist, so to be able to play an FBI agent, whom I’ve never played before, all of those things added to my enthusiasm and excitement about being a part of this project. The icing on the cake was that it was so well written. I had seen the first season, Manhunt: Unabomber, and loved that show. I love stories that are based on a true story. That really just drew me in.

PTV: It’s important to note that Stacy Knox was not a real person. Your character and the Jack Brennan character are both composites. So how did you prepare for this role, since there wasn’t a specific person for you to portray?

KJ: What I was able to do was just approach the research with an open mind, grasping the nuggets that I found in doing the research and what was happening during that time back in the ’90s with the FBI. Then we were so fortunate and blessed to be able to work with two FBI agents who were a part of this manhunt. We were able to get first-hand information from them.

That just really helped to build our characters and get a great understanding of who these agents were, even though they were an amalgamation. My character and also Gethin Anthony’s character, Jack Brennan, were a compilation of different agents.

PTV: How did you present a three-dimensional picture of her as a competent FBI agent but also someone involved in an investigation where mistakes were made and things went wrong?

KJ: I think for Agent Knox, she did her job to a T and also to a fault. She was very much a woman who said, this is the job before me. These are the orders that I have to execute and I’m going to execute those orders. For her, and also for me playing her, it was truly about never making this personal.

I’m not going after Richard Jewell like the “Una-bubba.” I’m not attacking you as a person. I’m not attacking you at all. What I have before me is evidence that points to you. Whether it’s right or wrong or coincidental or not, I have a job to do and right now you are the target. I think just being able to focus on doing the job and not making it a personal attack on the individuals really helped create that balance.

PTV: Cameron Britton mentioned in our interview that he was surprised how many people still didn’t know Richard Jewell was not the Olympic Park Bomber. Did you learn anything in making Manhunt Deadly Games that gave you additional perspective?

KJ: I was much younger when this happened so there is a lot that I just didn’t remember or didn’t know that I didn’t know. Doing the research, it was eye-opening. I did not realize how hard they went after Richard Jewell and how [people] tried him in the media, and how they made fun of him and just how they destroyed his life.

Also the FBI, in their pursuit of him, they were doing their job. Richard Jewell was let go from a university for impersonating a police officer. He did reach out to his friend and say, watch for me. I’m going to be in the middle of all this mess in Atlanta. Or the picture that he had with the Alice pack which was the exact pack that was used at Centbom. There were things that the FBI used or were given.

Those kinds of things I was not privy to.  I also did not know who was convicted of it. I did not know about Eric Robert Rudolph and I did not know about the manhunt that ensued because this man not only did this bomb, but went on to do three other additional bombings. All of that information was new to me.

PTV: What was your favorite part of Manhunt Deadly Games? Whether it’s a favorite scene or just part of making the series that you particularly enjoyed?

KJ: Working with Andrew [Sodroski], the co-creator, the writer of this show, it was a very open process. He was so open to learning about the backstory that we created for our characters. Gethin also really challenged me to not be afraid to share the backstory that I created. There is a moment that Gethin and I get to sit at a table. We’re drinking some whiskey and we’re just sharing our stories with one another, and we get to see the humanity of Agent Knox particularly and to understand why she joined the FBI.

That scene means so much to me because that wasn’t written in initially. Through Gethin’s support encouraging me to share that with Andrew and Andrew graciously receiving that, they wrote in that scene and we got to share that. That’s something that really sticks out to me and that’s really very special to me.

PTV: What comes next for you? Do you have other projects in the works or other things you’d like to do in the future?

KJ: I am working on a play right now. I am one of the founding members of Black Rebirth Collective. They commissioned me to write a piece about Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King. That was inspired by The Meeting, written by Jeff Stetson, which was an imagined meeting between Malcolm X and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was so moved by that piece that I walked up to Jeff, and said, “I would love to see something like this between Betty and Coretta.” And he smiled and walked away. Someone overheard me say that and they said, “Well, you should write it.” And then I did the same thing to them that Jeff did to me, I smiled and walked away.

Then these amazing women that I founded this theater collective with, when they asked me, “What is it that you are passionate about? What do you want to do?” I mentioned writing this play. They said, “Well, go for it. Start writing.” And so I did. What I really want to accomplish with this piece, oftentimes these amazing women, Betty and Coretta, are only known as the widows of Malcolm and Martin. They were so much more than that. I just want to have the opportunity to show what made them laugh, what made them cry. Did they get angry? Did they have an attitude? Who were these women outside of the wives or widows of these incredible men?

There’s a biography written about Betty Shabazz and Merlie Evers-Williams, the wife of Medgar Evers, she wrote the foreward. She talks about how these three women had become the widows of the movement and how it was just an exclusive club that they belonged to. She talks about how Betty and Coretta, their relationship went from rivalry to tolerance to genuine affection. I am taking some creative license with this piece, but I just thought that that was a really profound statement and I wanted to see what that journey would look like in a one-act play.

Manhunt Deadly Games has moved to Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. Watch two back-to-back episodes this Saturday, and catch up on past episodes on CBS All Access.