Marcus Scribner is used to seeing himself on billboards around LA—starring in one of the most popular sitcoms in the country since age 14 will do that. But now at 23, the Black-ish star is seeing himself around town in a different light—a darkly ironic one. The billboard for his new film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is just half a mile from his apartment—hanging over a gas station. “I don’t know who did that, but that was crazy,” he laughs.
The movie is fiction, but it is based on a 2021 nonfiction book by Swedish professor Andreas Malm which argues that sabotage of any type is a legitimate form of climate activism. The adaptation is directed by Daniel Goldhaber, (who also wrote the script based on Malm’s ideas alongside Jordan Sjol and co-star Ariela Barer) and follows a group of young activists who plan to blow up a pipeline in West Texas. It almost plays like a climate change heist film—and it features Scribner, who plays one of the activists, as you’ve never seen him before.
For the past nine years, Scribner’s relationship to most audiences has been as Junior: first as the dopey but endearing oldest son of the Black-ish brood, then as the still-dopey, now-dreamy young man on the college spin-off Grown-ish. “I was so young when I started,” he tells me over Zoom, fresh from a late night on the Grown-ish set. “But taking a step back and realizing what impact Black-ish and Grown-ish had on the world and specifically the Black community is just insane.”But this project, he readily acknowledges, is a departure.
In Pipeline, he plays Shawn, the college everyman who gets involved in extreme environmental agendas through his classmate Xochitl (Barer) after they meet at a climate change student meetup and discuss the need for radical change. Shawn ends up as both the group’s recruiter and the audience surrogate as he’s introduced to the world of environmental terrorism. Scribner says he wanted to be in Pipeline because he knew in his gut it was going to do something. “I saw how big of a splash it was going to make,” he says. “I felt like there was nothing like it in its lane. And right now environmentalism is very important —as it should be—because our planet is dying. We’re on limited time. And I feel like the situation is just getting more dire as the days go by.”
As an actor, Scribner loves to collaborate—so when Goldhaber asked Scribner what he would want to do with the character, that was enough for him to sign on. For research, he started with the basics: reading the book, of course, and watching the Oceans’ movies for heist inspiration. Filming actually left him with a bunch of real survivalist skills, like how to use a ratchet strap, which he uses in a pivotal, white-knuckle scene where he’s strapping the bomb onto the pipeline.
But until seeing the final edit, Scriber never realized that Shawn would be the lynchpin of the film. “I knew Shawn was a leader and he was gathering the others,” he says. “Then to see it all come together and to see Shawn taking action and sprinkled throughout as a connective tissue, you look at the bigger picture: He’s basically the grim reaper for everyone.”
That’s not to say Scribner’s comedy skills didn’t get used—in a tense film, he gives some much-needed levity, especially in a scene where the group gets drunk the night before their mission. His experience as an improviser is part of why Goldhaber wanted to cast him. “Shawn is the most grounded character in the movie, the everyman,” Goldhaber tells me. “And since he is the connective tissue of the ensemble, we knew that the actor playing him needed to be instantly relatable. Marcus brings such a natural charisma, warmth, and vulnerability to his roles, and in real life is the kind of guy who can instantly befriend anyone. He probably could unite a merry band of thieves if he set his mind to it.”
When the director reached out to Scribner about the film, they immediately connected over their own anxieties about climate change and what they could do about it. Scribner says that energy made it on-screen: “I think what’s so exciting about Pipeline to me is there’s a powerful message behind it. We’ve got to take back our planet.” he says. “But at the end of the day, it’s just an amazing ’80s, stylized heist thriller with this fun ensemble cast.” He continues, “Black-ish was the same thing. We’re talking about all these hot button race issues and dynamics of the Black family, but at the same time, we’re making people laugh. I think making things as entertaining and as well as possible is the first step to helping the medicine go down.”
The film arrives right as—with the announcement that Grown-ish will end with its sixth season—he’s getting ready to say goodbye to Junior definitively. It’s a bittersweet farewell to a character who has defined most of his young life. “It’s crazy that I’ve been a part of your life or a character that you really care about for 10 years. It’s just kind of mind boggling. It’s a little overwhelming, you know what I mean? I’m humbled and appreciative and it’s just crazy that it was my first big project.
But leaving Junior behind gives him a new opportunity to pursue just about anything. Scribner is a major science fiction, anime, and comic book fan, citing the anime Fire Force and Ghost Rider as film adaptations he’d love to be a part of. He’s got a production company. He wants to do a blockbuster comedy someday.
But that’ll all come later. For now, he’s excited to have Pipeline finally out in the world. “I’m very fortunate to be in the position that I’m in,” Scribner admits. “But I think one of the things that I took away from Pipeline is to try to be more informed about what is going on in the world around me. As a 23-year-old dude, there’s so many other things that I’m constantly thinking about. Once you’re informed about what’s going on around you, it’s hard not to want to take action. You know what I mean? You want to do something.”