David Oyelowo has a lot going on in the Government Cheese trailer. Not only is he the star of the series, he also executive produces under his first-look deal with Apple TV+. His character Hampton Chambers is also a renaissance man: a former felon reinventing himself as an inventor, entrepreneur, and family man, pursued by thugs while trying to pursue the American dream. “Dreamers are dangerous,” Hampton is told, to which he responds: “Then consider me dangerous.”
Described as a “surrealist family comedy set in 1969 San Fernando Valley,” Government Cheese follows the Chambers, “a quirky family pursuing lofty and seemingly impossible dreams, beautifully unfettered by the realities of the world,” per the synopsis from Apple. “When Hampton Chambers (Oyelowo) is released from prison, his long-awaited family reunion doesn’t go quite as he’d planned. During his absence, Hampton’s wife Astoria (Missick) and sons Einstein (Ellison) and Harrison (Di’Allo Winston) have formed an unconventional family unit, and Hampton’s return spins their world into chaos.”
The Government Cheese trailer precedes the series premiere on April 16. Four of the 10 episodes will drop that day, followed by new episodes every Wednesday through May 28, 2025. The show is executive produced and co-showrun by Ayesha Carr (The Carmichael Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Paul Hunter, who also directs.
Oyelowo recently starred in the Prime Video film Role Play; on television, he’s worked on the Apple TV+ series Silo and the Taylor Sheridan-produced Paramount+ show Lawmen: Bass Reeves, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. “It’s no secret that shows or films centering on Black people traditionally have been deemed to have less value, less reach, less potential for remuneration, all of which is not true, and which Bass Reeves went on to disprove,” he told Deadline in May 2024 after signing his first-look deal with Apple. “In lieu of [comparisons], you want successes, which is where a Bass Reeves becomes very useful. You want successes to be able to go, ‘Listen, when Paramount trusted us with something that felt a little uncomfortable, they were rewarded for it. Trust us.’ Now, the chances are that you are going to fail as well as succeed, but that is where you are constantly trying to find, as we call them, the wins on the board. And it’s terrifying. It’s not for the faint of heart, but this is the business that we’re in.”
