Stand and Deliver

The Oscar is nowhere in sight.

In fact, few personal possessions, apart from a smattering of family photos, are on display in John Ridley's office on the Disney lot in Burbank, California. But if the award-winning scribe hasn't had time to properly move in, it's understandable given his whirlwind year.

Since snagging the 2014 Oscar for best adapted screenplay for 12 Years a Slave — based on Solomon Northup's searing 1853 memoir — Ridley has channeled most of his energy into American Crime, the gritty ABC drama that premiered in March to much critical acclaim.

"Literally the day after the Oscars, I got on a plane to Austin to shoot the pilot," he says, kicking back on a sofa. "I didn't even have a chance to get up the next morning and enjoy [the win], to think about something that means so much to so many people who work in this business.

"And that was probably the best thing that could've happened," he continues. "It was good to go focus on something [else]. But it is weird that there's this big thing that's happened in my life that I haven't been able to deal with."

Maybe that's why talking about that moment of Oscar glory today makes Ridley tear up. "I'm sorry," he says, leaving the room momentarily to search for Kleenex. There aren't any tissues in his office yet, either.

"When people ask about it, you're like, 'Wow, a lot has happened in a year,'" he says when he returns, "and I'm just thankful for all of it."

At the top of that gratitude list is American Crime, the anthology series that marks Ridley's return to TV. He's not only the showrunner and creator-executive producer, but he directed three of its 11 episodes and wrote five as well.

Ambitious and provocative, Crime — which examines the ripple effects of a deadly home invasion on the victims' families, the suspects and the community of Modesto, California — is an unflinching exploration of such hot-button issues as race, class and religion.

Not long after a white war veteran, Matt, is murdered and his wife Gwen is left in a coma, arrests are made: drug addict Carter (Elvis Nolasco), who is African American; gang member Hector (Richard Cabral), a Mexican native; and sheltered teen Tony (Johnny Ortiz), who is Mexican American.

Among those dealing with the fallout are Mart's divorced parents: Russ (Timothy Hutton), a recovering gambler who bankrupted his family, leaving brittle ex-wife Barb (Felicity Huffman) to raise their sons in public housing, where the seeds of her racism were sown.

The suspects have their own supporters: Carter's white drug-addict girlfriend, Aubry (Caitlin Gerard), who is also initially arrested, and his sister, Aliyah (Regina King), who's recently converted to the Muslim faith.

Then there is Tony's widower father, Alonzo (Benito Martinez), a Mexican-American business owner who harbors prejudices against members of his own ethnic community.

In short, it's the kind of challenging, yet rewarding, drama usually found on cable, not a mainstream broadcast network.

Which is part of what intrigued Paul Lee, ABC's president of entertainment, who not only gave the series a green light but also the plum post-Scandal time slot, Thursdays at 10 p.m.

"American Crime is not like any other drama out there at the moment," says Lee, whose network has found success this season with series that have diverse casts and bold points of view, including How to Get Away With Murder, black-ish, Cristela and Fresh Off the Boat.

"John [Ridley] is as strong a voice as exists anywhere, and the show has a raw emotional power. When you're in my job, you relish taking risks when the show is good — and this show is extraordinary."

ABC first reached out to Ridley in summer 2013 — well before the writer would become an Oscar winner — about crafting a drama series around a major trial.

But by the end of a long lunch between Ridley and Michael McDonald — the former head of drama at ABC Studios who'd met Ridley a decade earlier when both worked at UPN — that general idea had begun to evolve into something richer and more specific.

"There was a lot out there in the Zeitgeist about race and crime," remembers McDonald, Crime's other executive producer, citing the trial of George Zimmerman for the killing of teen Trayvon Martin, which ended in an acquittal that July.

"And John and I were both fans of true-crime documentaries like The Central Park Five and [those about] the West Memphis Three. We were fascinated with what it was like for the people that surround these trials."

Ridley — who'd been working on several historically based projects, including 12 Years and the Jimi Hendrix biopic All Is by My Side, which he also directed — was eager to tackle a piece of fiction that could realistically reflect today's world.

For better or worse, recent events — like the police shooting of teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — have only made the series feel more timely.

"But above and beyond trying to be didactic about where we are as people or make any particular comments about society," he says, "I [was] trying to create something that an audience would have an emotional response to."

American Crime certainly proved to be an unforgettable experience for those who made it.

"John created an amazing esprit de corps on set," reports former Desperate Housewives star Huffman. "Everyone there wanted to give 110 percent because they believed in him and the project. It was a really intense, but wonderful, four months."

Adds McDonald: "Everyone knew what we were doing was different, and we all felt willing to follow John like a general up a hill."

Born in Milwaukee but raised with his two sisters in the nearby suburb of Mequon, Wisconsin, Ridley describes an upbringing with little of the drama that characterizes much of his work.

The son of an ophthalmologist father and a special-education teacher mother, he pursued a variety of interests in high school, including cross-country track, student government and school musicals, before graduating in 1982.

Says Ridley: "It was what people would hope for in their lives — to have parents who care about you, a family that's really there for you and a community that's really supportive.

"Maybe that's one of the reasons I like complications in my work," he adds. "Because, very fortunately, I didn't have to deal with those things on a regular basis growing up."

At New York University, he majored in East Asian languages and culture, spent a year in Japan and considered pursuing a career in diplomacy. ("If you haven't noticed, I talk a lot," he says with a laugh.)

But by the time he hit L.A. in 1990, he'd decided to put that gift of gab to use as a stand-up comic. "If I was that good, you'd be interviewing me under different circumstances," he says of his relatively brief comedy career. "The problem was, I was working around people who were great — Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Dave Chappelle. It was the créme de la créme, so to be highly adequate wasn't going to cut it."

Still, the experience emboldened him to share his point of view with an audience.

Tackling highly charged subjects like Rodney King and O.J. Simpson, his act became less about "whether people were going to laugh or not," Ridley says.

"It was like, 'This is what I want to say and I'm just i going to say it, love it or hate it.' It was liberating to be able to stand in front of people and go, 'I'm not going to just give you what I think you want to hear. We're really going to talk about some things.'"

Eventually, he left stand-up to write for such sitcoms as Fox's Martin and NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

He also penned several novels, including Stray Dogs, which he wound up adapting into a script that Oliver Stone directed (1997's U Turn).

Other screenplays followed, including one that became Three Kings, starring George Clooney — as did a gig as a regular commentator on NPR and work on TV dramas like NBC's Third Watch.

In 2003 he created a drama for UPN about a family who owns a hip-hop record label. Its original title? Empire.

Ridley's series, which was retitled Platinum by the time it premiered, was executive-produced by Hollywood heavyweights Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola and aired only six of 13 episodes; 12 years later, another hip-hop family saga called Empire is a smash hit for Fox. "I was ahead of my time," quips Ridley.

"I don't want to say it's the same thing," he adds. "Their story — and how they're telling it — are very different. But it is one of those things where you go, Man. I thought we did an amazing job [with Platinum], but it just did not have that cultural density."

While Ridley's resume is impressively diverse, he says that by 2007, "I got to a spot where I felt like my life wasn't going down the path I wanted it to."

He found himself thinking back to a panel he'd done years before with Oscar-nominated scribe Randall Wallace. "He was talking about how he had a nice house and was driving a nice car but he was still unfulfilled," Ridley recalls. "He wanted to write something that was going to fulfill him, and that's when he wrote Braveheart.

"I remember thinking at the time, 'You're not happy with your house and car?'" Ridley continues with a laugh. "I thought he was putting it on."

But after building his own comfortable life with wife Gayle and their sons, John and Jason, Ridley understood what Wallace meant.

"I realized I had a choice," he says. "I could chase [projects] that would pay, but where every day I'd be going, 'I'm dying.’ Or I could take a chance and say, 'If I could write anything, what would it be?'"

Enter 12 Years a Slave, which he wrote on spec. It was the creatively stimulating project Ridley had been yearning for, but even now he finds himself blown away by its wide-reaching critical and commercial success.

"It was," he says, "the right film, right time, right place, right people."

But after his Oscars acceptance speech — in which he didn't thank the film's director, Steve McQueen — that perceived snub led to a flurry of headlines and stories of a rift between the two.

Today, if given the chance for a do-over, "I don't know that I would do anything differently," Ridley says. "I had 30 seconds to talk, and the only individual I ever worried about giving thanks or praise to was Solomon Northup. I know people take things differently, but in that [moment], it was about Solomon, and it was about my wife. It started with him, and it began with her."

After achieving film's highest honor, Ridley says it never occurred to him to simply slap his name on his new TV show and leave the day-to-day production duties to someone else.

"I'm kind of obsessive-compulsive," he says, "so it was never a question. If they were going to pick up the show, and if they were going to be gracious enough to let me direct [episodes], I was going to go down there and set a tone. Be the first person on the set every day. And the last person out of there.

"If it's not important to you," he continues, "how are other people going to take it as important?"

While Ridley has no intention of leaving movies behind — he wrote the script for the upcoming Ben-Hur remake — he's keen to continue working in TV.

Should American Crime get picked up for a second season, he'd focus on a different crime in a different city but keep some of his season-one cast in new roles

"This show," Ridley says emphatically, "has been one of the best professional experiences I've ever had. Ever. Ever."

Photographs by Rocco Ceselin