Actor Jeremie Harris is fast becoming a familiar face on television, with key roles in two hit series. On FX’s Marvel Studios-produced series Legion, he plays Ptonomy Wallace, a superhero mutant with a photographic memory and the ability to read the memories of others. On Netflix’s 1970s hip hop-themed series The Get Down, he portrays shady record company executive Shane Vincent. Harris recently spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead to talk about the series, how he identifies with his characters and his thoughts on diversity within the television industry. Here’s an edited interview transcript.

MCN:Did you think the first season ofLegionwould be as successful as it was?
Jeremie Harris: Well, it’s [showrunner] Noah Hawley, so we go behind him. Even though we might not understand everything — as we were reading the scripts, we were in the same place as the fans were in trying to figure out is this real or not real — but we have so much faith in him. We see what he did with Fargo, as well as his specificity as a writer and his appreciation for writing. I hoped it would be successful, but you never know, but I knew we had a good leader in front of us.

MCN:There’s a lot of superhero content in the entertainment industry today. What was it aboutLegionthat allowed it to break through the clutter?
JH: It’s a different type of superhero show, and that’s why it broke through and why the critics and people who watched it loved it so much. It’s very different and it’s taking a new and unique approach to presenting a comic book superhero story. It also deals a lot with mental health and illness, as well as “others” — people who have been told their entire lives that they’re not normal, don’t fit in or are different because of the way they are. We band together to work with one another to show that we are OK with who we are. That’s the theme that I love, and I think that’s why we’ve been able to cut through and make a mark for ourselves in this genre.

MCN:Were you a bigX-Menor superhero fan growing up?
JH: My brother was the bigger fan, and I was like the younger brother who checked it out every now and then. I hadn’t heard of Legion before the show, and I wasn’t someone who knew all the ins and outs and intricacies of The X-Men. So for me it was a good process of going up to Marvel — they gave me more than 100 comic books to take home — and I’ve learned more and more as I’ve gone along.

MCN:You’re also part of the cast ofThe Get Down, which is a little different from your role inLegion.
JH: I’m really excited about people seeing The Get Down part 2. I play an A&R [Artists and Repertoire] executive so I do my little shady business stuff, but I have a good heart in the show. When you work with these visionaries like [The Get Down creator] Baz Luhrmann who respect the art, you know that an audience will find it and attach itself to it. When you’re creating detailed characters, I think fans will really find it. I think that’s what’s happening with The Get Down and with Legion. I just hope to keep myself a part of work like that.

MCN:Are you finding that the television industry is currently providing more opportunities for actors of color than in previous years?
JH: I think representation is important, and now that’s coming to the forefront. It’s important to have characters that reflect the world, and we are a world of people of diverse backgrounds. I think we’re just going to continue to move forward, and young actors like myself are excited to have the opportunities that I know that 30 or 40 years ago some of my contemporaries didn’t have. I just want to keep that going: Inclusion is something that we can’t ever turn our back on, so we all need to be included.

TV networks are giving classic music fans a chance to bust out their platform shoes, parachute pants, leg warmers and bandanas.

AXS TV tonight (Aug. 11) will debut AXS TV Concerts Hosted by Mark Cuban, a new weekly concert series featuring live performances from such popular 60s, 70s and 80s bands as The Village People, The Monkees, Bret Michaels and KC and the Sunshine Band.

Tomorrow (Aug. 12), Netflix will premiere its drama The Get Down, its ode to the late 1970s hip hop, punk and disco scene in the Bronx. Hopefully the Baz Luhmann-produced series will dance to a more successful beat than HBO’s series Vinyl, an homage to 70s pop/rock music that missed a note with viewers earlier this year. HBO canceled it after initially renewing the series for a second season following the premiere.

Related:Trailer for Netfix's 'The Get Down'

Even MTV has returned to its classic music roots, having relauched the VH1 Classic network into MTV circa 1980-2000. The new MTV Classic channel debuted Aug. 1 by offering the same programming MTV aired during its first hour on air -- 35 years ago.

Among reruns from classic MTV scripted and reality shows like Beavis and Butthead, MTV Classic will also feature vintage MTV Unplugged performances featuring such performers as Bob Dylan, Alice in Chains, Erykah Badu, Oasis, Neil Young and Nirvana.

Viewers have already boogied this summer to ABC’s limited series Greatest Hits, which brought back artists like Boyz II Men, The Backstreet Boy, Wilson Phillips, New Edition, En Vogue, Nelly and Rick Springfield to perform their biggest hits from the 1980s-early 2000s. The series drew a respectable average of nearly 4 million viewers during its six-week run that began in June.

With the country still struggling through a turbulent summer, and an uncertain and potentially unstable few months ahead, a dose of nostalgic, comfort music on TV may serve as a welcome respite for viewers.

Cable networks and streaming services are turning up the volume on music, cueing up scripted shows designed to hit the right notes with audiences.

From Million Dollar Quartet, CMT’s historical look at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, to Roadies, Showtime’s series about a concert setup crew, to BET’s biographical miniseries New Edition Story, cable networks are mixing pop music with drama in an effort to strike a chord with a broader young audience.

“Music is the great unifier,” Cherie Saunders, TV editor for black entertainment-news website EurWeb.com, said. “If you can tap into a fan base and just feed them a constant diet of that genre of music through whatever drama vehicle you’re presenting, I think that combination can generate a hit series.”

The music component also allows programmers to extend the marketing mix for a series beyond television, into digital album and single sales for original music tied to the show — another way to reach younger viewers.

“Music is an element that brings in younger audiences to drama that might otherwise skew typically older,” TV One president Brad Siegel said. “It’s a way to bring 18-34 and 18-49 viewers into drama.”

Scripted series that play off popular music trends aren’t new to television. Sitcoms like The Monkees (1966-68) and The Partridge Family (1970- 74) had a long shelf life in reruns. More recently, Fox’s Glee and ABC’s recently canceled Nashville took music-themed TV into new terrain.

And on the cable side, music-themed biopics like last year’s Whitney, Lifetime’s take on the life of pop diva Whitney Houston, and HBO’s Bessie, which starred Queen Latifah as blues icon Bessie Smith, have generated big ratings and garnered critical acclaim.

But it’s the success of Fox’s hip-hop themed Empire that’s helped the genre hit a high note with viewers. Music serves as a strong backup player to the dramatic series’ soap opera-like storyline.

Empire, which depicts the triumphs and struggles of a family-run music enterprise, was the top freshman show on both broadcast and cable during the 2015-16 television season and remained among the most-watched shows by adults 18-49 during its sophomore campaign.

“The music is important, but I think the other elements of storytelling, production value and amazing characters are just as big a contributor to the show’s success as having music and music performers,” Siegel said of Empire, for which TV One in April secured rare in-season distribution rights.

Last month, the network scored the biggest Memorial Day weekend ratings in its history by running an Empire marathon.

While just about everyone has an emotional relationship with music, not everyone likes the same types of music, Showtime president and CEO David Nevins said.

Ultimately, music serves as a way to draw viewers to the drama, with the characters and the storyline providing the glue that keeps them coming back each week, said Nevins, whose Showtime will launch Roadies on June 26.

Produced by Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), Roadies follows the backstage workers who build and break down the stage for a touring rock band.

STORY MATTERS, TOO

Other distributors have been successful in melding music themes with strong storylines. Amazon scored a hit with its sophomore dramedy series Mozart in the Jungle. The classical music-based series won two 2016 Golden Globe awards for best comedy series and best actor in a comedy or musical series for star Gael Garcia Bernal.

FX’s Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, which follows Denis Leary (also a producer) as an aging rock star trying to resurrect his career with the help of his musically inclined estranged daughter, returns for a second season in July, while HBO’s 1970s rock music-themed series Vinyl — despite so-so reviews and less than stellar audience numbers — returns for a second season in 2017.

Netflix will also revisit the 1970s in The Get Down, a series that will focus on the rise of hiphop music late in that decade.

CMT is hoping viewers will make hits of two music-based scripted series: Million Dollar Quartet and Still the King, which stars countrymusic veteran Billy Ray Cyrus as a one-hit-wonder-turned-Elvis impersonator who hits rock bottom before discovering he has a 15-year-old daughter.

CMT’s first scripted-series foray would naturally be rooted in music, given the channel’s country-music pedigree, CMT executive vice president of development Jayson Dinsmore said. But both shows will offer music that extends beyond the traditional Nashville sound, he said.“We didn’t just put the expected songs in Still the King — you’ll hear everything from the Rolling Stones to Modest Mouse, in addition to current country artists,” he said.

With Million Dollar Quartet, the network will look to extend the show’s brand to the Billboard charts by selling the show’s performances in music stores and on digital platforms, Dinsmore said.

All of the performances from Million Dollar Quartet will be available for purchase on iTunes after each episode airs. CMT is exploring the idea of a music tour involving the series’ stars once filming of the first season has ended.

Indeed, Saunders said Empire and Nashville effectively incorporated popular music both as part of the storyline as well as promotional tool to help expose the series to new audiences by selling songs from the series as part of digital single downloads and full albums.

Empire’s season-one soundtrack, released in March 2015, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart — the first TV soundtrack to launch at the top of the charts since Glee in 2010. By the time Empire launched its second season last October, the album had sold more than 431,000 copies and had been streamed online, either in part or in full, more than 122 million times, according to Nielsen.

SPINOFFS ARE KEY

“We have to look at all kinds of different benchmarks in order to determine what is a successful television series today, and a big part of that is fan engagement,” Dinsmore said. “The more we can offer up experiential things like a tour, the more goodwill we have around the channel.”

BET will also look to generate music sales from New Edition Story, the documentary miniseries based on the 1980s R&B boy band that spawned the careers of Bobby Brown and Bell Biv DeVoe.

BET president of programming Stephen Hill said the industry is just now striking up the band for even more music-based shows to serenade viewers. “There are some stories that can be told,” he said, adding that the network is exploring several music-based series of its own, although he would not disclose specifics.

Added EurWeb.com’s Saunders: “As long as the ratings continue to soar for these types of shows you’ll see more of them. It won’t be too long before we get a polka show or a bluegrass series.”

Netflix has tapped actor/musician Jaden Smith for its new music-driven drama The Get Down, said network officials.

Smith, the son of actor Will Smith, joins the cast for the 1970s Bronx series in the role of Marcus "Dizzee" Kipling, 18, a psychedelically talented and enigmatic graffiti writer raised in the South Bronx, said Netflix. The Baz Luhrmann-produced series will debut on the OTT service in 2016.

"We as an audience have known Jaden since he was very young," said Luhrmann in a statement. "We’re all very happy with the casting of Jaden in the role of 'Dizzee' Kipling, and with his addition, the Kipling family cast is now complete." 

Previously announced cast members include Jimmy Smits, Herizen Guardiola, Justice Smith, Shameik Moore, Skylan Brooks, Tremaine Brown, Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen and Mamoudou Athie.

Netflix will develop a new drama that will focus on the 1970’s New York City music scene, the network said Thursday.

The series, The Get Down, will be produced by Baz Lurhmann (Moulin Rouge!) and will follow a group of South Bronx teenagers who turn the experiences of their difficult surroundings into music through hip-hop, punk and disco, said the streaming service.

Lurhmann will executively produce the series along with Paul Watters, Thomas Kelly, Stephen Adley Guirgis, Shawn Ryan, and Marney Hochman.

“From his very first and magnificently original steps on the world stage with Strictly Ballroom to his most recent with The Great Gatsby, Baz conjures worlds we may not recognize initially, but once there, realize they are infused with the same dreams of every person - to belong, to matter, to live life to its fullest,” said Cindy Holland, vice president of original content for Netflix in a statement. “We are thrilled to support Baz, Catherine and Paul and their team in their quest to illuminate those same dreams through the artists who came of age in the cauldron of the Bronx in the late 1970s.”