In the first season of Prime Video’s crime thriller Cross, there’s a pivotal episode where the show’s lead characters, Detective Alex Cross, played by Aldis Hodge, and his partner Det. John Sampson, played by Isaiah Mustafa, get into a heated argument in the locker room at their D.C. police station. The altercation is so intense that a co-worker steps in to separate them before things escalate. 

It’s one of Hodge’s favorite scenes from the series, which premiered in November 2024, for the simple fact that those witnessing the filming of the scene forgot that he and Mustafa were just acting.  

“[Mustafa] and I were having so much fun having this fight while everybody behind the camera was crying,” says Hodge, laughing. “They were like ‘Oh no! We love these two and they’re fighting.’” 

“For real,” Mustafa adds, throwing his head back, bursting into laughter. 

“We were just laughing our a–es off and having a good time because this is just my boy,” Hodge says. 

In addition to their decades-long acting experience, part of what makes their performance on Cross so believable and effective is their genuine friendship. “[Hodge] always has my back,” Mustafa says. “I always have his.” Their real-life bond translates on-screen and helps them bring an emotional richness to their characters Cross and Sampson, who consider each other family. 

Created by Ben Watkins and based on the characters from James Patterson’s best-selling Alex Cross book series, the Prime Video hit follows the decorated homicide detective and forensic physiologist as he hunts for killers alongside his partner, while also grappling with the murder of his wife and trying to protect those he holds close. 

The NAACP Image Award–winning show, which was greenlit for a second season before its first episode even aired, has just wrapped its sophomore run. With new cast members including Matthew Lillard, Jeanine Mason, Wes Chatham and Watkins (the showrunner and an executive producer on Cross), the detectives spent the season pursuing a formidable new antagonist: Gabriella Porras’s Rebecca Matthews, also known as Luz Perez, a relentless vigilante targeting corrupt billionaires to avenge her mother.

At the same time, the brotherhood between Cross and Sampson faced a deeply personal strain, tested not only by separate high-stakes missions that sent them searching for answers, but also by a secret that felt like betrayal. 

As anticipation builds for a third season, we actually caught up Hodge, star and executive producer, and Mustafa to talk about what surprised them most the second time around on Cross, how the bond between their characters began to crack, and what they’ve learned from each other over the course of making the show.

*This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ESSENCE: Season 1 ends with Alex confronting his trauma and committing to therapy after years of avoidance. What did he understand about himself in Season 2 and how didprioritizing his mental health complicate the way he does his job?

Aldis Hodge: He had definitely explored a few avenues of what peace looked like for him. He wanted to further explore what romance looked like in his life. Individually, I thought he was a bit more steady and stable within who he was, and within the part that he played in this whole conundrum. With his job, he was challenged further. But I felt like we started at a place where he was more assured of who he was and the world around him, and then everything started to unravel and get crazy.

In Season 1, Sampson was Alex’s emotional anchor, but Season 2 turned the lens toward Sampson’s personal trauma around his mother’s absence. What was it like to see that dynamic shift and did diving into his backstory change the way you prepared for the role?

Isaiah Mustafa: I didn’t have the luxury of seeing Season 1 to kind of watch the trajectory of the character from the audience’s point of view. I just had it from the writing and from what I was reading. But there was a moment, I believed, in the first episode where Cross and Sampson were in the station and he was checking on how he was feeling about a certain somebody. Then you went face first into Sampson’s past. So, I liked the way our writers transitioned that, where you saw Sampson was still there for his best friend, but then you saw that his best friend was going to be there for him. You saw this reversal of the situation that you had seen in Season 1.

This time around, the show invited the audience to explore the antagonist, Luz Perez, more than ever before. We were given context, history and even moments of empathy. How do you think that level of intimacy changed the stakes of the story, both for your characters and for the viewer? 

Hodge: I think that it gave you a great deal of introspection and, to a degree, a bit of confliction, which is the fun of watching any well-rounded emotional narrative for me. Because we had the chance to understand who the villain was to a point of questioning whether we saw them as a villain or not. This season focused a lot on the question of what the difference between revenge and justice is. Is someone doing the wrong thing for the right reason, the right thing? Does that make them all wrong or all right? We got to have a deeper conversation about choices, about personal conflict, about perspective and perception through the visage of these characters. I love how layered it was because we weren’t just getting the scenario, we were getting the humane element—the emotional tug. 

Season 1 explored the tension between the Black community and law enforcement, while Season 2 took on a different social justice issue that’s very relevant right now. As actors and storytellers, why was it important for you to continue engaging with these themes as the series expands?

Hodge: I feel like you’re going to continually bask in the glow of mediocrity if you don’t approach subject matter with honesty. We try to be as honest as possible when it comes to what we’re doing, obviously, with the caveat of commercial viability. We are making a show, but we have an awareness and, I think, respect for the audience enough to know that they are going to expect and want something that feels grounded and feels real. So, when we talk about subjects, we have to go at it with a bit of caution. It has to be done with respect. It cannot be salacious. We cannot commoditize. We want to tell these stories with a degree of empathy, so that when people are watching, they’re having a good time, [but] they can also pull some substance away from it to say, “Dang, you know what? Let me go check into this because I care about it.” Because people are [dealing with] these scenarios that we’re pulling from, so it would be nice to be able to tell these stories and hopefully create an environment of “How can we help rescind the problems?”As opposed to “We don’t care about being a part of the problem.” Storyline wise for Season 2, this was not even something that was conceived based off of purely current ongoings, this was something that was already in the works, and timing just happened to be magically coincidental in terms of some of the subject matter we touched on. But knowing that, I’m glad that our writers did handle it with as much care as they did. 

Your chemistry feels effortless on-screen. What’s one thing each of you has learned from the other—about acting, collaboration or even life—over the course of making this show? 

Mustafa: He’s an executive producer and star of the show, so I came in as a co-star in the ensemble. For me, it was really just looking at how somebody goes about [wearing] all those hats and being at the helm of something and being able to kind of negotiate and manage their personal life with their professional life, and succeed at it. It was a blessing to be able to watch both Aldis and Ben [Watkins] really construct something that was so amazing that I was a part of. Like, when I tell you, to be a general manager or a head coach of a team, you really have tobe able to talk to everyone and reach everybody where they are. Aldis has an amazing ability to do that, as much as I hate to admit it. [Laughs] But at the same time, if it’s something that needs to be said that’s stern, he’s able to deliver that in a way that’s constructive. So, it was really helpful for me to be in a position to work with somebody like that because you don’t always get that. You get people who are very ego-driven and who really don’t care about you too much. They just care about how they’re going to look, but Aldis cares about the whole product.

Hodge: Thank you, man. I also paid you to say that. 

Mustafa: Sometimes you spell my name wrong… I’m just saying. The check’s gotta be right. [Laughs] 

Hodge: I will make a quick correction. You’re not my co-star; you’re my co-lead. 

Mustafa: Okay, okay. [Laughs]

Hodge: I mean that. This show is, I feel, equally Sampson’s as much as it is Cross’s. This show hinges on the relationships of the characters, particularly of these two characters. If you don’t believe them, you don’t believe what’s going on in the show, which means we got to have our stuff together behind the scenes. Isaiah always comes prepped, ready and professional with a great attitude. I always say that Ben Watkins is the captain of our whole ship. [Isaiah] and I are co-captains. This is a brotherhood between these two characters, so that means we’re going to be in this space for as long as the show is going, and you need support. You need reliance. You need genuine help. And that’s exactly what I get from Isaiah. I knew the show could work and fly because of the fact that there is no ego between the two of us. There’s only support.

* This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

CREDITS:

CREDITS  
Photographer @kjohn_lasoul 
Styling @jasonrembert 
Grooming Aldis @alanapalaumakeup 
Barber Aldis @thedopeinfluencer 
Grooming Isaiah @bridgetoneillmakeup 
Nails @sayo_irie 
Production @laurenpaigecreates and @niaalexandra_ 
Location @svstudiosla 

ESSENCE 
Editorial Director @ghostwritervic  
Content Operations Manager @shelbylnstewart 
VP, of Social & Special Projects @mentionme  
Visuals Director @hashtag_bre 
Art Director @so.lit 
Writer @kailynhype