“Chevalier” begins dramatically with a “Battle of the Bands” in an elegant Parisian theater. Only this is a 17th-century competition between two violinists, the already legendary Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Bologne, a biracial musical – and fencing! – prodigy from the Caribbean.
While “Chevalier” revives a composer and cultural force erased by history, for Kelvin Harrison Jr. bringing Bologne alive was easily the most challenging role he’s ever faced.
Bologne was brought from Guadalupe to France as a child. The son of a Frenchman and enslaved African woman, the boy was prodigiously talented on the piano, violin and in fencing. For his accomplishments he was honored as Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Harrison, 28, who starred as Fred Hampton in the “Trial of the Chicago 7” and played BB King in “Elvis,” grew up in New Orleans, singing and playing the piano and trumpet. With parents who are musicians, this musical history helped but “Chevalier” really was demanding on a whole other level.
“My dad told me, ‘Every time you play something, you must be saying something.’ So when I worked with the actor who’s Mozart, we sat down and I said, ‘Let’s figure out what are we trying to say to each other.’”
Not only did Harrison have to learn to play the violin as well as the swordplay, he dug into archives for research into this hidden historical figure and then went further to try to understand the life and times in France when Marie Antoinette was Queen and a patron.
“I did five months of violin training,” he recalled in a Zoom interview. “When I started I was still filming ‘Elvis.’ I got a violin and found one of my buddies who was a violin teacher. He started by reintroducing the fundamentals to me again.
“Then I went home. My dad was a classical music teacher and he we came up with a really good regimen in order to attack what was necessary to get to where I needed to get. I had a teacher in LA and another in Prague. So as I did five months of seven days a week, six hours a day.
“When we started shooting, we did 10-hour days and I would do fencing for an hour afterwards with the stunt crew. Then I would do two hours with my violin teacher and once in my apartment, I learned my lines.”
Next up: Young Scar in Disney’s 2024 “Mufasa: The Lion King.”
“I’ve always been more attracted to the villain. Take an iconic character and humanize him as much as possible,” Harrison said. “It’s a prequel so it’s really giving Scar an opportunity.”