John Marshall Jones Spills Details on Upcoming Paramount Network Series ‘Paradise Lost,’ With Josh Hartnett and Nick Nolte (Exclusive)

John Marshall Jones is well-known for his role as Floyd Henderson on the beloved ’90s sitcom Smart Guy, but now the actor is spilling details on his upcoming Paramount Network series Paradise Lost, which also stars Josh Hartnett and Nick Nolte. While speaking to PopCulture.com, Marshall opened up about the new show and explained what fans can expect to see from the Southern Gothic drama.

“It is placed in a very corrupt, small, Southern town in which the publisher of the local newspaper known as the judge wields all the power,” Jones told PopCulture.com. “He’s been using his newspaper like a puppeteer to put people in power and take people out of power in different places. He’s recently had a scandal with his oldest son when they got in trouble with some money.” Jones adds that the character “had to move him out, and he calls his youngest son, who was a newspaper man in San Francisco, to come back home and help him to get everything straightened out temporary.”

“The youngest son doesn’t know that the judge has a plan to get him so embedded in what’s going on in local politics and scandal that he can never leave again,” the actor went on to say. “And that essentially is the basis of the story.” Other actors appearing in Paradise Lost include Bridget Regan, Barbara Hershey, Gail Bean, Danielle Deadwyler and Shane McRae. At this time, the 10-episode series does not appear to have an announced premiere date. In addition to speaking about Paradise Lost, Marshall also opened up about another project he’s involved in: Kappa League, which is “the oldest and most successful African-American male mentorship program in the United States.”

They group has its own television channel, KappaLeague.TV, which is billed “as the CNN for young black men.” Elaborating on the network, Marshall explained, “Our goal is to to nurture and train and prepare young black men to be able to tell the stories of their communities in a news format that allows them to get control of the narrative of who young, black men actually are in American society.”

“Last year, we established Kappa League TV to allow us to promote our mentorship program to all corners of the country and around the world,” Marshall went on to share. “And the final goal of it is that we are expanding from 8,000 young men to 14,000 young men by our hundred year anniversary in 2022.

“We’re going to maintain that level of mentorship for 10 years, and during that time we have aligned our membership requirements with the historically black colleges admissions requirements, so that when a young man comes into our program, if he does what we ask of him, then we can guarantee his admission to college,” he added. “And the goal is, over that 10-year period, to have 140,000 young men gain admittance into the historically black college system.”

Anyone interested in more information about Kappa League, can read about the organization here on its website.

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