'Underground Railroad' is toughest thing I've done, says Barry Jenkins

Filmmaker Barry Jenkins says shooting for his upcoming Amazon series "The Underground Railroad" was emotionally draining.

Jenkins, best known for making critically-acclaimed and award-winning features "Moonlight" and "If Beale Street Could Talk", is developing the series from author Colson Whitehead's 2016 novel of the same.

During a conversation via Instagram live with IndieWire, Jenkins said the show is the toughest project of his life.

"It's the toughest thing I've ever done, not because it was difficult to make physically, but just emotionally," he said.

"I've never cried on set, with anything I've made. On this one, at least once every two weeks somebody would be like you alright man?' I would have to walk... off the set for 10 or 15 minutes because I was just distraught. Our guidance counsellor pulled me off set one day and would not let me continue to direct," he added.

The 11-episode series will follow young Cora's (Mbedu) journey as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumoured Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil.

Image credit: AP