Speaker 1: Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies
Speaker 1: and Gentlemen. Welcome to QLs Classic Episode forty seven with
Speaker 1: the Great Spike Lee August two, thy seventeen. A side note,
Speaker 1: our guest today deserves credit at least for inspiring the
Speaker 1: Supreme Roque Hall theme song of our beloved show. Besides that,
Speaker 1: Spike Lee is a provocateur, a visionary, a storyteller, great,
Speaker 1: a hustler, accentric soul. This episode came slightly before his
Speaker 1: Oscar victory for Black Clansmen in twenty nineteen. But don't worry.
Speaker 1: We get it all out, all of his journeys, all
Speaker 1: of our favorite movies. We get to ask him everything
Speaker 1: right here on QLs Classic with the Great Spike Lee.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be really awkward.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Soma su Supremo role call Suprema Son
Speaker 3: Sons Loving Albody, Suprema Son Son Supremo role called Suprema
Speaker 3: Son Son Upbramo.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna sit here, yeah and have the
Speaker 1: call yeah and pray the Spike don't suit me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're stealing his song.
Speaker 3: Roll Call Supremo Supremo roll call, Subpremo son something Supremo
Speaker 3: rod call.
Speaker 1: My name is Fante, Yeah, dropping these flows, yeah, because.
Speaker 4: A Supremo roll call, Supremo some Supremo road.
Speaker 5: My name is Sugar, Yeah, the inside man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been with the roots.
Speaker 1: Yeah since the Bamboozles band.
Speaker 4: Rama Supremo roll call.
Speaker 6: Son some Supremo roll call Lee once was yeah boss
Speaker 6: Bill's teen hero Yeah, but directing skills, Yeah, I had almost.
Speaker 3: Hero subprema so Supreme roll Suprema son Supremo role.
Speaker 7: I want to let you know. Yeah, I'm not just
Speaker 7: for show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, will you let me go?
Speaker 1: Oh god, Supreme roll explain that.
Speaker 2: After the roll. My name is Spike, yeah with the nickname.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: My mother said, yeah, I was out of his world.
Speaker 3: Rolling Suprema something Supremo, roll call, Subprema something something Supremo role,
Speaker 3: subframa son Supremo roll.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One person clapping.
Speaker 7: I'm not just for sure.
Speaker 2: Yet what school day.
Speaker 1: Song written? Because her timing? Because she up, I didn't
Speaker 1: It's hard, you know, Okay, now he hears the song
Speaker 1: in everybody.
Speaker 2: I didn't recognize the song either.
Speaker 1: And did you recognize Wait, before I even introduce you
Speaker 1: Spike Lee. Uh, he just did what is the history
Speaker 1: behind uh your roll call?
Speaker 8: Like?
Speaker 2: I heard that at Morehouse? Oh so that's I didn't
Speaker 2: make that up.
Speaker 7: Isn't it like a warm up?
Speaker 2: Like? So we just baby just going to school Morehouse,
Speaker 2: they had a roll call and we just incorporated into
Speaker 2: uh school days and do it again? Did it again
Speaker 2: when he got game? So that was in school days.
Speaker 2: It wasn't.
Speaker 1: Because I first and get on the bus on school
Speaker 1: days too.
Speaker 2: I gotta watch it, watch it again again the gam Mites.
Speaker 8: Really yeah, when they first get in, when they first
Speaker 8: come on and they walk down the gam Mites.
Speaker 1: Oh, I gotta watch it again. Okay, wow, well ladies
Speaker 1: three times. Okay, ladies and gentlemen. This is another episode
Speaker 1: of Quest of Supreme. Uh introducing the fam This is
Speaker 1: uh damn. I really wish uh fon tigelow Uh who
Speaker 1: who was the the the bus driver of get on
Speaker 1: the bus. And to my right we have Sugar Steve,
Speaker 1: who was one of the thugs in in Summer of sam.
Speaker 2: That's what's up? Yeah? Yeah, what last your last name?
Speaker 5: No, At the end of the vowel, I was around
Speaker 5: back then, but it was I didn't do it. I
Speaker 5: actually actually I have a similar last name to the
Speaker 5: guy who did do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh yeah, and uh Boss Bills to my left
Speaker 1: eacle Sandwich. Oh, he was one of the cornermen on
Speaker 1: Do the Right Thing. I was going to ask to
Speaker 1: be Bob Regular from Girls six Bob Regular. No, okay anyway,
Speaker 1: and we have Fresh from Crookland.
Speaker 7: Ok.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was the girl making out with with was
Speaker 1: also in Crookland. Y'all were making out with each other
Speaker 1: and the and the until the beginning.
Speaker 2: Job. I hate Ticky, No Tacky go to Joe Cuba.
Speaker 1: Yes, finally, uh it's It's taken some time, but I
Speaker 1: will say that, at least for me personally, and maybe
Speaker 1: I speak for most of the inhabitants of this room,
Speaker 1: that we we have the the director of our particular
Speaker 1: generation with us right now.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, mister Spike.
Speaker 1: Sheldon Lee, New Yorker Film r Tour, political activists and
Speaker 1: and and great human being.
Speaker 2: How are you. I'm good, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2: And we're in Electric Lady studios, so this is very historical.
Speaker 2: Wait somebody.
Speaker 1: To say that, yes, I'm sorry, I've not been given
Speaker 1: Electric Lady.
Speaker 2: There props.
Speaker 1: We're live in studio a where many a classic has
Speaker 1: been born, A lot of.
Speaker 2: Great spirits in here. Well we are right now. You
Speaker 2: can feel it. Walk in the door. You could feel
Speaker 2: the spirits. Well, Spike.
Speaker 1: I know when when Spike agreed to do this, he
Speaker 1: was like, so it's like forty five minutes. I was like, no, ninety,
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, so now right. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: Spike ninety. I tried to hint. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: in the Jimmy Jam episode, it was seven hours. Spike
Speaker 1: was like, nah, motherfucker.
Speaker 2: So I'm good. We had to let me go. Oh
Speaker 2: you don't mean that. You don't mean that. Let me
Speaker 2: lean back.
Speaker 1: All right, So I'm gonna because we're we have so
Speaker 1: much questions about your.
Speaker 2: Your film, decade to work, body of work. Yes for
Speaker 2: thirty years. Yeah, you were born where in Atlanta, Georgia?
Speaker 1: In Atlanta, Georgia, right, Really? I thought you were born
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 2: No, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. My parents moved
Speaker 2: to Brooklyn. We moved to Crown Heights when I was
Speaker 2: like two years old. Move from Crown Heights doing the
Speaker 2: first Black family Cobble Hill. Wow, that's where all my
Speaker 2: Italian American thing comes back, because back then the cobble
Speaker 2: Hills is stone Italian American. And then my mother says
Speaker 2: Tony Patton rent. So we bought a brownstone in Fort
Speaker 2: Green for forty five thousand dollars in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Wait, how is that even possible?
Speaker 2: Sixty eight? What was that like? Pre gentrification? In fact,
Speaker 2: the realtors wouldn't even list for Green, they would say
Speaker 2: downtown Vicinity. So it's really been a trip that you
Speaker 2: grow up in Fort Green, predominately black and Puerto Rican schools,
Speaker 2: no good garbage, never picked up, cops on around, and
Speaker 2: those things aren't like that anymore with the change, and
Speaker 2: they know they are not garage, just cleaned up. Public
Speaker 2: schools are great on the cops or wrong.
Speaker 7: I was trying to explain to my New York daddy
Speaker 7: what Dumbo was today.
Speaker 2: He was like, what I do? I don't know down
Speaker 2: on the Manhattan Bridge, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: For the films that you've shot in Brooklyn neighborhoods, how
Speaker 1: different are they now?
Speaker 2: Like the do the right thing block? Like, what is
Speaker 2: that now? Is that? Like it's counttainable, it's gentified. So
Speaker 2: no more black families, no more brown but I gentify,
Speaker 2: I mean Do the Right Thing was shot in bedstide
Speaker 2: door died bephis diverson. But the great thing about that
Speaker 2: New York City, that block we shot on, we shot
Speaker 2: do on thing of one block. The summer nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: that block has been renamed Do the Right Thing Way.
Speaker 2: That's the first time a movie, a song has ever
Speaker 2: been just named the name after that. So we take
Speaker 2: our nest also where we have our Michael Jackson block
Speaker 2: parties too, on the same block.
Speaker 6: So is that the block where I visit the office
Speaker 6: and it's the office is further down downtown.
Speaker 2: My office in Fourth Green, Okay, so okay, that's not yeah.
Speaker 1: And the place where you when I visited your first store,
Speaker 1: like back in ninety one, is that still up.
Speaker 2: That's called Chez Paulette, Okay.
Speaker 1: But that's the new name of the block or the
Speaker 1: new name of the.
Speaker 2: It's a restaurant. But my office is on South South Elliott. Okay.
Speaker 2: What the restaurant is is where the original Spikes Joint was,
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and I own that building to And so
Speaker 2: when we did Jungle fever Us where halle Berry. We're
Speaker 2: gonna put a plaque there where she stayed. Wow. Wait,
Speaker 2: that's the scene where oh there's no scene, and that's
Speaker 2: that's just where she stayed. Wash, she washed, she was
Speaker 2: shooting the film.
Speaker 1: Oh damn, okay, that's not where the Ta Mahall scene was.
Speaker 2: The wake up. Let's let's halle Berry's first film, too
Speaker 2: Jungle Fever And did she really not shower for all
Speaker 2: those days? And he goes the story, Wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 2: let's get to that. We can do it now. She think, uh,
Speaker 2: Robbie Reid cast that film, and so she brought a
Speaker 2: halle Berry came in five times mm hmm. And the
Speaker 2: role is viving the two dollars crack hot, and the
Speaker 2: first four times she was just too fun. Finally, some
Speaker 2: must have told her, you can't kind of looking like this,
Speaker 2: So she I think she's ben bayed for a week.
Speaker 2: And I didn't even recognize when she stepped in the room.
Speaker 2: And that's how she got the part. Wow. I just
Speaker 2: did not see her finely she was. That's the opposite.
Speaker 2: I did not see it as being a two dollars
Speaker 2: crack hot. Wow.
Speaker 7: Awesome.
Speaker 1: She showed us, didn't she did so why, I mean
Speaker 1: at a time where where the seventies and the upward
Speaker 1: mobility and you know a lot of our you know,
Speaker 1: the ways that black people expressed themselves creatively, usually through
Speaker 1: sports or singing.
Speaker 2: Right, why did you choose visuals?
Speaker 1: Why did you choose I mean, was it that you
Speaker 1: had a child experience where you saw like Gordon Park
Speaker 1: Works And no.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that. When people ask that question a lot
Speaker 2: and I just say, a film chose me. I grew
Speaker 2: up in a very artistic background. My mother taught us
Speaker 2: great high school in Brooklyn Heights called Saint Anne's. She
Speaker 2: taught black literature. My father's a great jazz musician, composed
Speaker 2: a Bill Lee, And I just grew up in a
Speaker 2: very artistic household. My mother had the vision, not that
Speaker 2: she was going to be artists, but she exposed us,
Speaker 2: just not just me, but all my siblings to the arts.
Speaker 2: So she was dragging me the Broadway plays museums while
Speaker 2: you know, and I didn't want to go. We went
Speaker 2: kicking and screaming. Every single time we came home. We
Speaker 2: would we would think it because that.
Speaker 1: Was that was fun.
Speaker 2: Well, you're going to zoom going to plays like My
Speaker 2: mother's one introduced me to Martin Squaresese. She took me
Speaker 2: to see mean streets. My father hated movies. I mean,
Speaker 2: but I love sports. So my love of sports comes
Speaker 2: from my father. There right, My love of movies comes
Speaker 2: to my mother. I was my mother's movie date.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, how how is one film buff
Speaker 1: before the age of the remote control the rewind button?
Speaker 2: Netflix? Uh yeah, and just cable because they had you
Speaker 2: know a wait, I forgot the word from, but you
Speaker 2: had the theaters has showed old films.
Speaker 1: So even back in the seventies they would still show
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean there was, but was it
Speaker 1: film new are like now in the weekends, I know
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve movie theaters in New York that will
Speaker 1: show I mean.
Speaker 2: It's not get hotter, so it's the Saint Mark. I'm
Speaker 2: begetting the theaters. But they were certain theaters. That's all
Speaker 2: they showed was old films. And that's the only where.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is room before DHS. Okay, So I
Speaker 2: mean unless you stayed up, you know, watch with the
Speaker 2: commercials on Channel che eleven, you went to these retrospective theaters.
Speaker 1: But was there film noir on the level, like, now,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll buy all the Criterion collection right stuff
Speaker 1: and watch the you know, like what was that for you?
Speaker 1: Like what was the director's commentary for you? I mean
Speaker 1: that really seduced you into.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like that. I mean I went to films,
Speaker 2: but I was not a film buff. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to be a filmmaker. I wanted to play second best
Speaker 2: second base for New York Mets, but genetics conspired against
Speaker 2: that second baseman I have for short stop, but I
Speaker 2: only played softball. But but here, here's the story though,
Speaker 2: and I said it many times and maybe audience hasn't
Speaker 2: heard it. I went to Morehouse because I had to
Speaker 2: go to Morehouse. My father and grandfather went to Morehouse,
Speaker 2: and my mother and grandma went to Spellman across the street. Third,
Speaker 2: I'm some educated Negroes. My father, my father was a
Speaker 2: fresh and Morehouse. Doctor King was a senior Morehouse and
Speaker 2: doctor King's son, Mark King, the thirty and I were classmates.
Speaker 2: Were in the class seventy nine and Morehouse also with
Speaker 2: Jay Johnson used to be head of home Security. Oh,
Speaker 2: we were all the class saty nine and Morehouse. So
Speaker 2: my first two years in Morehouse. I was a D
Speaker 2: plus C minus student. It was because I wasn't smart.
Speaker 2: I just was not motivated. And right before it's time
Speaker 2: to go back to New York, back to Brooklyn. At
Speaker 2: the end of my sophomare, my advisor told me that
Speaker 2: I had to choose a major. I said why, and
Speaker 2: she said, because you've exhausted all the electives. It's like,
Speaker 2: this is now, this is this key, this is this
Speaker 2: historical because it's twenty years now, It's like, this is
Speaker 2: a very important summer twenty years ago, summer seventy seven.
Speaker 2: So I came back to New York and New York
Speaker 2: City was broke. You couldn't get a job usually, you know,
Speaker 2: you get a job in the summer. Your newest New
Speaker 2: York City was broke. And there's a famous daily news
Speaker 2: front page it said Ford, this city drop dead, Ford
Speaker 2: being president Ford. So I had nothing to do all summer,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to, you know, sit in and
Speaker 2: stoop and play drata matic baseball, you know. And so
Speaker 2: I have a very good friend. Her name is Vianna Johnson.
Speaker 2: She was always smart. The top three, the top three
Speaker 2: public high schools New York City are Stuyversont, Bronx Science,
Speaker 2: Brooklyn Tech, and so you could take a test depend
Speaker 2: on your grade. The tear is diversand's first Bronx Science,
Speaker 2: then Brooklyn Tech. Brooklyn Tech is on the same block
Speaker 2: where where of course street direct cross street from Spikes
Speaker 2: joined on a block from my office now forty acres
Speaker 2: on the mule. Anybody went over at this house. She's
Speaker 2: always smart and went to Stuyvesant, went to Prince Undergrad
Speaker 2: Harvard Med School. She always we always, she always knew
Speaker 2: she's gonna be a doctor. So so one day, and
Speaker 2: looking back on this, I understand it was not lucky.
Speaker 2: It was the spirit. The spirit told me to go
Speaker 2: see Vieta that day because I wasn't doing it. Damn
Speaker 2: ship to do. So I go see vi Ata. She lived.
Speaker 2: Her lived on ashing place where University Towers is, right
Speaker 2: across the street from l I U where the field is.
Speaker 2: And so we're sitting in the living room and it's
Speaker 2: the box in the corner. I say, what is that box?
Speaker 2: She said, that's super a camera. You can have it. WHOA.
Speaker 2: And then I say, what's another box? She says, stupid,
Speaker 2: that's the box. That's the that's the cartridge for the
Speaker 2: Super Break film for the camera, she says, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't need this shit. I'm gonna be I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm gonna be a doctor. Right. This is his sister.
Speaker 2: She's a doctor in Chicago. Now, so now I had
Speaker 2: something to do. So the entire summer nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have a job. I ran around New
Speaker 2: York City with the Super eight camera. It was also
Speaker 2: one of the hottest summers on record. That's why there
Speaker 2: was a blackout when Conazen fucked up. Black folks Puerto
Speaker 2: Ricans lost their mind, looting like mother. Right, I was
Speaker 2: filming it Fifth Street, filmed it on, filmed it on
Speaker 2: on on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. Also, seventy seven was
Speaker 2: the first summer disco, so all the DJs were hooking up.
Speaker 2: The wheels are still and to the turn to the
Speaker 2: in the turrible speakers, the street lamps, so I was
Speaker 2: still on the block parties. The dance was a hustle.
Speaker 1: Also, the film from uh, the Off the Wall documentary, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where footage comes from.
Speaker 2: So then we had this maniac called psychoed David Burkowitz.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing that people forget about that summer, Black
Speaker 2: and Puerto Rican people were now scared of David burke
Speaker 2: Witz because this is this is before Gentification, and the
Speaker 2: motherfucker David burke was to come into Harlem, to come
Speaker 2: to South Bronx, to come to bedside do or die,
Speaker 2: he would have been killed, right And it's not I'm
Speaker 2: not making fun of us because people lost loved ones.
Speaker 2: But the fact remains Black people, Puerto Ricans not. We
Speaker 2: weren't worried about son of Sam So had this footage.
Speaker 2: Came back to school in the fall and declared my
Speaker 2: major asked medications, but Morriston had that major. I took
Speaker 2: the class from Majors across the street to Clark College Massifications, Film, TV, Radio,
Speaker 2: print Journalism. I forget what the other thing is. And
Speaker 2: there's a teacher there. He's still teaching that that. His
Speaker 2: name is Professor Herb Eichelberger.
Speaker 8: Yes, doctor, I went to Clark You went to Clark Radio,
Speaker 8: TV film, Doctor Eichelberger.
Speaker 2: Was give it a u c AU center. So he
Speaker 2: doctor her Biker who's still teaching there. He's the one
Speaker 2: that encouraged me to be a filmmaker. He's went. When
Speaker 2: I talk about this footge I had. I took the
Speaker 2: footage back to the Atlanta That's what Morris says, but
Speaker 2: I didn't know what I was gonna do with it.
Speaker 2: He encouraged me to make a documentary and that documentary
Speaker 2: turned out to be Last Hustle on Brooklyn. And there
Speaker 2: are many times so her doctor Eichelberger called doctor e.
Speaker 2: He had the key to the film lab and two
Speaker 2: or three times a week he would stay three four
Speaker 2: hours so I could work on a film. He wasn't
Speaker 2: getting paid overtime either. And it's been my maybe you
Speaker 2: guys will experience in my experience. I've talked a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and everybody talks about that one teacher they
Speaker 2: had that saw something in you do youn't even see Wow.
Speaker 2: And Herb Eichelberg was when he said, he said, you
Speaker 2: know what. I started to think about the all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Then it came back to me full circle. My mother
Speaker 2: started was taking me to movies. I remember my mother
Speaker 2: taking me East the Sun and see motherfucker Bye by Bertie, Wow,
Speaker 2: and the openings. No people noticed the opening credit sequence
Speaker 2: do the Right Thing Comes from Bye by Bertie and
Speaker 2: Margaret That's where shit came from.
Speaker 8: Rosie Perez comes from Anne Margaret. I mean because she
Speaker 8: dances her asshole though Ann Margaret, she.
Speaker 2: Does, That's where it came from. Wow. So all these
Speaker 2: things that happened started to spring up again. But my
Speaker 2: mother got blessed her soul. If you saw a crooking,
Speaker 2: you know, you know. My mother died while I was
Speaker 2: the sophomorehouse. All these things she planted, you know, bore
Speaker 2: fruit many many years later. But I did not grow
Speaker 2: up want to be a filmmaker. That just didn't happen. Yo.
Speaker 8: Speaking of circles, I just want to mention real quick
Speaker 8: in a strange circle. By the time I went to Clark,
Speaker 8: I believe Bill Nunn was a teacher at Clark Atlanta.
Speaker 7: I just wanted to that when he rest prest in peace.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Bill Nunn and Sam Jackson morehouse men. But
Speaker 2: they had graduated before me. But they were still in
Speaker 2: Atlanta doing local theater, and that's where I met them.
Speaker 2: They were a couple of years ahead of me.
Speaker 1: So can I ask you what is I mean now?
Speaker 1: In my mind? Like Atlanta culture became cool mid to
Speaker 1: late eighties, especially with music, migration and people coming down there.
Speaker 1: But what was Atlanta like? Like, were you rolling your
Speaker 1: eyes up in there? Like was anything cooler than New York?
Speaker 2: Like, Nah, it was the coolest.
Speaker 1: And when you went down.
Speaker 2: And I can speak with authority if you went if
Speaker 2: you were from New York and you went down South,
Speaker 2: all these motherfuckers were bamas has bamas, and we were
Speaker 2: very arrogant. I understand now they hated us that people.
Speaker 1: From New York that conversation, seeing that the KFC in
Speaker 1: school days was like a real that was typical of.
Speaker 2: Well, that really was a New York thing. That's more
Speaker 2: like college students, the local yokals versus that's real too.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though, because the aut centers it's called
Speaker 2: and they called the buttom milk the buttermilk bottom, so
Speaker 2: like even us seasonal hood yales and the but you
Speaker 2: Southern cal is in the hood yales in the hood.
Speaker 2: So you had these oasis in Colombia before they brought
Speaker 2: up all motherfucking Harlem not so hot either. These real
Speaker 2: estate motherfuckers they're trying, you know, they're trying to change
Speaker 2: the name of Malcolm X Boulevard to read Avenue.
Speaker 8: What Google happened to DC already our Malcolm X turned
Speaker 8: to Meridian Hill.
Speaker 2: They changed the name.
Speaker 7: It's Meridian Hill Malcolm X Park. Nope, Meridian Hill.
Speaker 1: Actually, are are the the I lived on Avenue Philis?
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Are our Malcolm X part just changed to we are
Speaker 1: now called uh Walnut Oak Lane. I'm not even Westville now,
Speaker 1: it's it's they changed the name Walnut Lane.
Speaker 2: That she ain't happening. I'm sorry, Harlem. They want to
Speaker 2: change it back to read Avenue. Fuck that.
Speaker 7: It's like anything possible in gentrification land.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. I'm sorry, but that that's crazy. But that's
Speaker 2: that's that's really the origin how I became a filmmaker. Wow,
Speaker 2: So the camera just basically just fell right in your lap.
Speaker 1: But that was you still have that camera? Where's that camera?
Speaker 2: I don't know. But here's the thing, though, I say,
Speaker 2: don't have to pay for it. There's a new museum
Speaker 2: in Philly. But here's the thing, not did you say it?
Speaker 2: I don't think I think that was ordained, because I
Speaker 2: don't think it was a mistake that that day I
Speaker 2: just decided to go see Vienna, and that day the
Speaker 2: super A camera was just sitting there in the corner, and.
Speaker 1: That career and handed you your career, you know what.
Speaker 1: Side note on a parallel tip now that I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about it, Spike Lee is also responsible for the roots
Speaker 1: because our story is very similar. Where after my audition
Speaker 1: at the New School and at Juilliard and Tariq.
Speaker 2: Came up with me to New York for the weekend.
Speaker 1: On my train ride home back on on on SCEPTERA
Speaker 1: from Jersey to back to Philly, a girl walked up
Speaker 1: and thought that I was Chocolate the bucket drummer and
Speaker 1: that Levi's commercials. She thought I was chocolate, But it's.
Speaker 2: Only because button.
Speaker 1: But it's only because I did Boys to Men's Motown
Speaker 1: Philly video and our hair was sort of similar, so
Speaker 1: may I knew she meant, are you the drummer in
Speaker 1: Motown Philly video? But she's like, oh, you're in that
Speaker 1: Spike Lee commercial, right, And so we were like laughing,
Speaker 1: like yo, man, like because that's that summer, Like fame
Speaker 1: just started a little taste of it, like people started recognizing,
Speaker 1: you know. So me and Terka were like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. But it was the next day
Speaker 1: when we were watching Soul Train and the commercial came
Speaker 1: on and it just hit us like eureka, Like we
Speaker 1: look at each other like, yo, wait while we do that, Like,
Speaker 1: let's do that in Philly, And instantly we got the
Speaker 1: buckets and like the roots as you know, it was
Speaker 1: born that way. But commercial, when you're Levi's commercial came on,
Speaker 1: it's like, Yo, we need to do that. And then
Speaker 1: we four hours later we're on South Street busking and
Speaker 1: then now I'm sitting here with Spike Lee elegally.
Speaker 2: Let me get this in is that you know a
Speaker 2: lot of people, you know, they tell you whether they
Speaker 2: like it film or not. But the biggest complidence ever
Speaker 2: get it's when people of all generations say they went
Speaker 2: to a black school or they went to college because
Speaker 2: of school. I mean when people say that there's nothing better.
Speaker 2: When they said because of that film, motherfucker, we even
Speaker 2: thinking about going to school. Didn't even know those there
Speaker 2: were things that black colleges and I'll be honest, I
Speaker 2: didn't know the culture was that rich.
Speaker 7: Like seeing that then I was like, oh, like it
Speaker 7: kind of set off a different world.
Speaker 2: Who knew? Yeah, yeah, that was simultaneous.
Speaker 1: Wait, was it a mistake that half the people that
Speaker 1: were in the same casting director.
Speaker 7: That's right because it was a different world first. That's
Speaker 7: how we knew it was wrong and.
Speaker 2: Came out first.
Speaker 7: That's what I meant.
Speaker 2: I think it's the thing though, you know, and I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't fault Bill Cosby. I should have been on it.
Speaker 2: I should have. I just had a different ideal about
Speaker 2: you know, stupid me, Miles TV. I'm not gonna do TV.
Speaker 2: And he saw the idea and he swooped in on it.
Speaker 1: Wow, before we started your film career, how did you?
Speaker 1: How did you gather the moss that will be? You're
Speaker 1: in a circle like, how did you meet Ernest Dickerson?
Speaker 2: Oh? How did you?
Speaker 1: Who was your starting five? Besides? Did you have the
Speaker 1: same light people, the same centerment? Who's the starting lineup?
Speaker 2: Well after Morehouse, I still knew I did not have
Speaker 2: enough skills as to be a director. Filmmaking the grammar
Speaker 2: the same way you put together a paragraph whatever granted
Speaker 2: this thing called film grammar. So I applied, I did
Speaker 2: my research, applied to the top three film schools in
Speaker 2: United States of America AFI American Film Institute USC S
Speaker 2: link all the Trojans in n YU. To get an
Speaker 2: AFI USC, you had to get an astronomical score in
Speaker 2: the g r E. I took the jury and I
Speaker 2: did not get that astronomical score. There were more forward thinking,
Speaker 2: progressive people thinking people in n YU the grad films
Speaker 2: could think that what you know, they understood the Standarize
Speaker 2: test and could be biased. He has to do being
Speaker 2: a filmmaker, so I didn't have to take a test,
Speaker 2: applied or do submit have a an undergrad degree. And
Speaker 2: some of your great portfolio I got in. Also, Ernest
Speaker 2: Dickerson got it. We were in the same class. We
Speaker 2: both from black schools, earning with Ernest with the Howard
Speaker 2: Wow oh wow, grew up in New Jersey, so right
Speaker 2: away we hit it to Ernest. Ernest shot all my
Speaker 2: in Why You In, Why You Grab? Film is three
Speaker 2: years so he shot my second year film, my thesis film,
Speaker 2: Joe's Best Sided Barbership, which won the Student Gammy Award.
Speaker 2: And and and because that film this is key, Ernest
Speaker 2: shot Joe's Best Barbershop. And that's that's that film. God
Speaker 2: named John Sales film brother Another Planet. Oh so oh
Speaker 2: so what it was great is because we always could
Speaker 2: work together. But it's great that Ernest had already shot
Speaker 2: a feature before he did, She's gotta have it, so
Speaker 2: he has more experience and knowledge. Yeah, so Ernest the DP.
Speaker 2: My editor is Barry Brown. Barry got my first job
Speaker 2: he had. He was owner of an independent distribution company
Speaker 2: called First Run Features. After graduate n y U, where
Speaker 2: I was just cleaning films and stuff like that. He
Speaker 2: cut it my father, Billy's composer Wynn Thomas from Philly.
Speaker 2: Production designer Ruth Carter, the great Ruth Carter went went
Speaker 2: went to Hampton. Ruth Carter, Robbie Reid, and Ray Dowell
Speaker 2: all were classmates, the same class really in Hampton. Wow, man,
Speaker 2: I did not know that.
Speaker 7: Huh your network.
Speaker 2: Network?
Speaker 1: So that that was for many years.
Speaker 2: That was the like, that was it. So Ernest shot
Speaker 2: features for me. She could have its school days do
Speaker 2: thing were better? Jungle Fever. Malcolm X was the last
Speaker 2: film sched real quick, and Ernest came in to be
Speaker 2: a director.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say he came into.
Speaker 2: He came to a director, but his cinematography was so
Speaker 2: tight that eventually he will become a director by being
Speaker 2: a DP. And so after Malcolm X, his first director
Speaker 2: of film was Juice. So I was right. Now, Ernest
Speaker 2: is the top one of the top episode of TV directors. Yes, wow,
Speaker 2: you see everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: Who decides the fifty one forty nine of it? Like
Speaker 1: I would assume that, you know, the president's the director
Speaker 1: and the vice president's the cinematographer, and you you got
Speaker 1: to be married to each other. So I mean, how
Speaker 1: come you guys didn't have a thing like Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: do this project and then I'll do the cinematography and
Speaker 1: you do directing or that's.
Speaker 2: I was not a cinematographer. What's the difference between Yeah,
Speaker 2: what is the different photograph the movie, the deep topha
Speaker 2: the same thing? Okay, yeah, right, that helps, but but
Speaker 2: but there's different just totally two different. Some they are
Speaker 2: DP directors, but usually is two different skill sets. And
Speaker 2: Ernest's visual sense was so far advanced the mind that,
Speaker 2: you know, when there was a question, you know, I'd say,
Speaker 2: so if you're.
Speaker 1: Talking about Spike Lee shot, the idea of the Spike
Speaker 1: Lee shot, you.
Speaker 2: Double dollary shot.
Speaker 1: Well, not even that I'm talking about first before the
Speaker 1: dollary shot. I'm thinking of a lot of your frames
Speaker 1: were diagonal.
Speaker 2: That was only in in do direct thing.
Speaker 1: You had some abstract looking stuff. It was those for
Speaker 1: she's got to have it. There was some abstract looking
Speaker 1: I never thought of looking at someone. I've definitely remember
Speaker 1: the first time you the cameras on the floor, more
Speaker 1: looking up, like making people taller. Just things I've never
Speaker 1: seen before. Well like who decides whose idea is that?
Speaker 2: It depends on you? I mean we usually back in
Speaker 2: early it was Ernest ideal because his his visual sense
Speaker 2: so much evanced in mind Ernest after graduated, Ernest was
Speaker 2: an architecture major at Howard and then he didn't come
Speaker 2: in while you right away he was a medical photographer
Speaker 2: at the hospital. So I mean his visual sense was
Speaker 2: was That's why everybody wanted Ernest to shoot their films.
Speaker 2: And while you grad film So.
Speaker 7: Was he the double Dolly or is that you.
Speaker 2: We both There was a scene of More Better Blues
Speaker 2: where we had First of all, we did not invent
Speaker 2: that shot.
Speaker 1: We just where did you first see it? Or we
Speaker 1: were like, okay, we gotta do that, and we did it.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't too later we discovered we saw this,
Speaker 1: people were doing it. I mean it was first when
Speaker 1: you were avoiding the thugs and more Better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was see what was wrong about that. When
Speaker 2: you when you're on a double dollar, you really shouldn't move,
Speaker 2: but I was trying to. I didn't We didn't know that.
Speaker 2: We didn't know that trying to move like a walk.
Speaker 8: But I got a real dumb question, is there us?
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, I got is there a single dollar shot?
Speaker 8: Because you're saying are you saying it is? You're on
Speaker 8: one and then the camera's on one or.
Speaker 2: No, it's just as it's one dollar, but the actress
Speaker 2: sitting on the dollar, so therefore we call the double dollars.
Speaker 1: So you're sitting on the store, kay, apple box app Okay.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing though, Ernest and I would do it,
Speaker 2: but finally we had we had a conversation. We said,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're out of film school, so we
Speaker 2: gotta we got to use this. So this shot means something.
Speaker 2: So example where it means something is when the best
Speaker 2: used probably is the next Yeah, he's going to the
Speaker 2: Botto ballroom. And the reason why I did that. Doing
Speaker 2: research for the film, I became very I became very
Speaker 2: close with doctor Basha Bass, Malcolm's willow, the late great
Speaker 2: doctor Basha Bass, and she told me she felt that
Speaker 2: Malcolm knew he was gonna be assassinated. We went to
Speaker 2: a ball and that he wanted to be a martyr.
Speaker 2: She when she told me that, I said, well, how
Speaker 2: can you convey that? And then we said we'll do
Speaker 2: that the double dollar shot. Another example be twenty fifth
Speaker 2: hour after the late great philipema Hoffmann kisses Anna was
Speaker 2: her last night and right there kisses kiss is a
Speaker 2: student and it his bathroom, and then it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: ship would I do? And that's when he's coming out
Speaker 2: to the song Brad.
Speaker 6: It's like, mad, I was going to ask about that
Speaker 6: scene because that song is just too perfect for that.
Speaker 6: That whole was too perfect.
Speaker 2: So what's a about an example, Denzel again an inside
Speaker 2: Man where we see what we think is an all
Speaker 2: thing of one of the hostages by Clive Owens character,
Speaker 2: but turns out it's fake, but them do's know it.
Speaker 2: So we wanted so right then and there, and he
Speaker 2: feels that he's responsible for this hospital shot in the
Speaker 2: head because he had roughed up Clive Owen's characters. So
Speaker 2: that's when we have him doing that too.
Speaker 7: Can you use it a few times?
Speaker 2: Yeah, where he would have a conversation down the street
Speaker 2: me and me and me and Wesley. Yeah, that's when
Speaker 2: I admit that I I spilled the beans. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, to to right. I told my wife so
Speaker 1: for she's got to have it?
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's how did you learn how to write
Speaker 1: a screenplay?
Speaker 2: Well? By reading the screenplays? I mean, we had it
Speaker 2: and want to use it. It's a great film schooling,
Speaker 2: so that I had teachers who would we would show
Speaker 2: the film. They will show you the film, they will
Speaker 2: give you the screenplay. So it's a great learning experience
Speaker 2: to read something and see how that's director will term
Speaker 2: y'all translate. So that's that's how I shot. She's happen
Speaker 2: twelve days really July first to the fourteenth, in the
Speaker 2: summer nineteen eighty five, two six day weeks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, Like I'm trying to do the math of the
Speaker 1: visual semi. Sorry for making this a very little interview,
Speaker 1: but in my head, I'm like, and you shot on time.
Speaker 2: We had to. We didn't have any more money.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, did you, Holly, which shuffle it?
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 1: Just here's my credit How do you have.
Speaker 2: A credit card?
Speaker 1: You have credit?
Speaker 2: I have? We uh, we put that film. We really did.
Speaker 2: We approached it the four stages. First stage was a
Speaker 2: shoot it. Second, this is film now we shot at
Speaker 2: Super sixteen. The second stage would get the film out
Speaker 2: the lab. The third stage was crucial. Was me to
Speaker 2: have enough money to eat? Why was it? Because I
Speaker 2: edited the film and that was very crucial because I
Speaker 2: was hanging out with the chef. You know what the
Speaker 2: chef is, the chef chef board. You so don't front, Yes, we.
Speaker 1: Have that was I'm pre pre rahmen, So wait, so
Speaker 1: I recall one of my dad's business partners, like when
Speaker 1: you first started coming on the scene, because there was
Speaker 1: buzz at the same time, almost Simon Chanslee about you
Speaker 1: and whoopees Rise in New York with her One Woman
Speaker 1: and showing you doing film, and I remember when I
Speaker 1: first ever heard of who you were. They were trying
Speaker 1: to describe the fact. Did you have to hustle T
Speaker 1: shirts or socks or something that?
Speaker 2: Oh, I know you're talking about.
Speaker 1: What was the story behind that?
Speaker 2: Well, in the trailer for the film, it begins with
Speaker 2: me saying tube sox, tube socks, three dollars. You can
Speaker 2: google google it. When I'm selling? When am I selling
Speaker 2: tube sox?
Speaker 1: I'm a director, so maybe they Okay, I'm thinking maybe they.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah he funded it selling t shirts
Speaker 1: and tubsocks. Okay, I see so before we get to
Speaker 1: school days and well, yeah.
Speaker 2: She's got to have it. How did you cast those people? Like?
Speaker 2: What was that process? Like? We I put an ad
Speaker 2: in backstage and people sending headshots and it was just
Speaker 2: off the headshots that you you call them in And
Speaker 2: the fine was Tracey Camilla.
Speaker 7: Jones and that was her in New jack City or
Speaker 7: is that an urban legend?
Speaker 2: No, that was their projected projecting scarface on.
Speaker 1: You w high price, and you brought her back in
Speaker 1: when we jumping with you brought her back in read summer. Also,
Speaker 1: she has a cameo in your Netflix version that she's.
Speaker 2: Got No, yeah, it was on Instagram anyway. Yeah it's true.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, wait lashes and what I call them flash
Speaker 1: from five Parties. But Melvin I knew you were knew.
Speaker 2: You want to say, Melvin John do you know this name?
Speaker 2: I just I was about to say from Philly.
Speaker 1: I've seen him once and I think he was doing
Speaker 1: an adaptation of both characters like a one grand and yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: what serious?
Speaker 2: This was like fifteen years ago. He put both characters
Speaker 2: together as a one man shows.
Speaker 1: It's it's like a retrospective of my history in cinema flash.
Speaker 1: It's slowly at the top in store in two weeks.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's when I realized, like, oh, you live
Speaker 1: in Philly. Like it was like the summer of ninety
Speaker 1: four or something like, right when the Roots Versus got started,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I'm doing a one man show
Speaker 1: about you know, my career and the experiences of you.
Speaker 2: Know that that sort of thing. So was not a
Speaker 2: long run.
Speaker 1: End was closed, grand open and grand closing. All right,
Speaker 1: school days, so many questions.
Speaker 2: Can I get started on school days? First? Having the
Speaker 2: first question of school days? Go ahead, pre date school
Speaker 2: days by well o good.
Speaker 1: So after she's got to have it, Mars, Oh, I
Speaker 1: forgot the videos too, Yes, a couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: When you were, I guess, finishing up, she's got to
Speaker 6: have it. You were getting started on another movie called
Speaker 6: The Messenger.
Speaker 2: No, no, hold on, hold on that was legend. No,
Speaker 2: I got it backwards backwards, Okay. After I finished in
Speaker 2: Yu in the summer in May of eighty two, I
Speaker 2: tried to do a feature film called Messenger we had.
Speaker 2: It was starring Lawrence Fishburne, Jean Carsposito. I got involved
Speaker 2: with the friend of the family who said he was
Speaker 2: going to finance the film, and I got all my classmates,
Speaker 2: We're gonna shoot this summer, this shoot this summer of
Speaker 2: eighty four. And the money never came. So I had
Speaker 2: to pull the plug. And my name was mud rightfully,
Speaker 2: so so I had to lay low, and I just
Speaker 2: said to myself, you know, I had three years of
Speaker 2: of being a graduate film in YU, so I was
Speaker 2: able to do a film with two or three people
Speaker 2: speaking and that turning that she's gonna have. But it
Speaker 2: was a complete disaster. Did you ever try to revisit
Speaker 2: that project later on? Do you saw the screenplay? It's
Speaker 2: not really for public consumption, And I just try to like,
Speaker 2: it's an exercise.
Speaker 1: It exercise, it got it, got it.
Speaker 2: But but here's the thing, though, and here's a here's
Speaker 2: a thing. I said this the other the other day
Speaker 2: in London, I gave his speech there. There have been
Speaker 2: so many times my life where I have one foot
Speaker 2: on the ground and that one foot that spzic Air
Speaker 2: Jordan is on the corner, is on the ground. But
Speaker 2: the grounds on the cliff and that next the other
Speaker 2: foot is about to take that step. And as I've
Speaker 2: been I've been blessed because so many times, if I
Speaker 2: was taken another step, it had been curtains. And if
Speaker 2: I if I have gotten the money for mak that film,
Speaker 2: I will not be here because I was not. I
Speaker 2: had people jumping off cars, off roofs. I mean, just
Speaker 2: crazy ship. There's no way I could have done it
Speaker 2: not have been the end of me. Really, So it's blessing.
Speaker 2: It's blessing a lot of times. Though we think about
Speaker 2: this a lot of times. Some shit happens and ain't like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, this is fucked up. But in retrospect you say,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm glad. I'm glad that.
Speaker 1: This is how I think you can resurrect it. Similar
Speaker 1: to uh, Mario doing uh badass.
Speaker 2: Make a movie about this movie.
Speaker 8: I think that's the movie, right, she gotta have It
Speaker 8: was at the beginning of the Nike relationship.
Speaker 2: Somebody wanted me to ask you that, yes and how
Speaker 2: famous story. Two gentlemen who work for Widen and Kennedy,
Speaker 2: still Nike's agency, Jim Davenport will Bill Widen, Uh. They
Speaker 2: in Portland they saw the film, they got the ideal
Speaker 2: the pair. Michael Jordan, my characters, Marsh called me up
Speaker 2: and said, we want to do this. We're shooting thirty
Speaker 2: five million black and white. You playing Mars, you could direct.
Speaker 2: There's one thing, Michael Jordan doesn't know who the fuck
Speaker 2: you are. I've never heard of a film. And he's
Speaker 2: just on a big deal with with the Nike and
Speaker 2: he said, so he has director's approval, and so Mike
Speaker 2: could have gone with Bob Giraudy, those big time commercial directors,
Speaker 2: Joe Picker. I mean, these guys are great. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't until the All Star Game in Toronto, which is
Speaker 2: two years ago. I finally got enough. Curse asked Mike.
Speaker 2: I said, money, why did you choose me? Said?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: He say, he said, because you're wearing the sneakers, right,
Speaker 2: That's where it started. You had to meet him first,
Speaker 2: and then, I mean, I mean, he made the decision,
Speaker 2: he was going to do it before I met him.
Speaker 2: But they yeah, but that's why he made that, That's
Speaker 2: why he tided to go with me and not Joe Picker.
Speaker 2: He was locking him.
Speaker 7: You would be doing it if you wasn't meeting with them.
Speaker 2: That's crazy. You know what, it probably was Mars the
Speaker 2: take off its Jordans was making little to Nola. That's wait.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, yeah, you were rocking the
Speaker 1: Threes by then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn no those Jordan ones. Yeah yeah, eighty six
Speaker 2: the Threes do the right thing.
Speaker 1: You're right, the Trees were bugging out. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, how did you how did you arrange for
Speaker 1: the Threes to make their debut in that film?
Speaker 2: Like I bought them? Wait they were out by then
Speaker 2: or just yeah they were off the sweet shot do
Speaker 2: the right thing? Summer eighty eight. Oh okay, okay, that
Speaker 2: makes sense.
Speaker 7: Where you keep them slight? What all your shoes? All
Speaker 7: the knights?
Speaker 2: Jordan's in the vault with the Oscar signed Game War signed.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you I know that you made By this
Speaker 1: point after the movie, you also started making music videos.
Speaker 1: You shot Why did you shoot a video to White
Speaker 1: Lines when it wasn't a single?
Speaker 2: Ernest and I were in film school, okay, and why
Speaker 2: you videos coming out? So we wanted we did that.
Speaker 2: White Lines video was on suspecause.
Speaker 1: Sylvie Robinson commissioned you guys to do it.
Speaker 2: We did unspec and God Rest her soul and Joel
Speaker 2: Joel Robins, but they were crooks. We do this video
Speaker 2: for white Lines staring Laurence Fishburne. Give it to them,
Speaker 2: they say, we don't want it. And then ten years
Speaker 2: later they put a compilation of videos and do you
Speaker 2: even see the splice marks? It wasn't even finished. They
Speaker 2: put it on their compilation for Sugar record videos.
Speaker 1: Wow, once they realized who they had crooks? What was
Speaker 1: it like shooting?
Speaker 2: Oh here's the thing. What was the Myles status? Shoot
Speaker 2: for it? I haven't seen that one. So here's the thing.
Speaker 2: The Miles be run that joint. Miles knew my father,
Speaker 2: so he'd have cursed me out. He gave me everybody else.
Speaker 2: He called you the motherfucking a second. But we were
Speaker 2: cool to Spike. I know your pops, you know your
Speaker 2: father was cool, so I'll leave you alone. But it
Speaker 2: was just great. You know, I've been very lucky. Miles
Speaker 2: Prince Michael Phillis hymen from from school day school days.
Speaker 7: Can we go back to Myles real quick?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 7: So when you saw Miles ahead? Okay, well okay, so
Speaker 7: where you ever inspired to?
Speaker 2: What's the question?
Speaker 8: Can there ever be another Miles Davis movie after there
Speaker 8: has been one and ship there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Here's the thing though, Look, I respect for Don Cheto,
Speaker 2: and I just think that there's a thing called taking
Speaker 2: liberties right but to event, I mean he he practiced
Speaker 2: sid himself. He had the right write that story, get funded,
Speaker 2: to get financed, and so the what's one man's name
Speaker 2: the writer, what's the actor's name? That? And the whole
Speaker 2: thing about his mask has been stolen that that never happened.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, it never happened.
Speaker 1: I will say, though, he can.
Speaker 2: I just say real quick, yes, That's why it pains
Speaker 2: because I worked on Jackie Robinson three years. I worked
Speaker 2: on James Brown for two years. I wanted to do Ali.
Speaker 2: But you can't do nothing film about Jackie Robinson. You
Speaker 2: can't do none the film about James Brown because the
Speaker 2: rights are gone. That the States sold the rights. They
Speaker 2: locked up, so you can't come behind them.
Speaker 1: No double jeopardy like film double Jeopardy. I mean there's
Speaker 1: multiple incredible hawks. There was the greatest and there's a lead.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: The thing is, though, I think you got very lucky.
Speaker 1: You got extremely lucky with Malcolm X for startists. He
Speaker 1: had a short life, so you know him him cutting
Speaker 1: his life, his life being cut in his thirties gives
Speaker 1: you just enough space to wiggle and really tell a
Speaker 1: meaty story, a three hour story. But it's almost like
Speaker 1: it in your vision of James Brown. Could you get
Speaker 1: from Augusta, Georgia in nineteen twenty eight all the way?
Speaker 1: Could you even get to nineteen seventy four without really
Speaker 1: cutting corners? Because the thing is, okay, the Miles thing
Speaker 1: with Don might have been a little spotty, but I
Speaker 1: least like the fact that they just chose one story.
Speaker 1: I'd rather see a well put together story in the
Speaker 1: day of life.
Speaker 2: Look, okay, you're.
Speaker 1: Gonna tell a three month story about him recovering.
Speaker 2: But but what you're talking about, though, quest, is that
Speaker 2: that's the rector's vision, because, for example, the reason why
Speaker 2: I didn't get Jackie Robinson made because I wanted to
Speaker 2: tell this whole story and they just wanted the powers
Speaker 2: to be the gate cues, just want to just want
Speaker 2: to do it. On nineteen forty seven, they broke the
Speaker 2: you know, the color line, And I just think that
Speaker 2: to say that this one life, I mean, this one year,
Speaker 2: how did he get there? You know? And do we
Speaker 2: know we're going to show you that he testified against
Speaker 2: Paul Robson. You know that that he was Republican. Damn
Speaker 2: we missed. I mean you you leave all that stuff out.
Speaker 2: But again it says it comes down to the director's vision.
Speaker 7: You know, so who you gotta hurry up and swoop
Speaker 7: down on before somebody else?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 8: Wells, I was writing for Wesley.
Speaker 2: To kill it. Damn, I really wanted. I wanted Donzela.
Speaker 2: It was an age where he could have played Jackie. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow it also I like to say something again this
Speaker 2: all respect, How can brother man go from Jackie Robinson
Speaker 2: James Brown? I have ever seen a picture through from Marshall?
Speaker 2: Was that was? That was hertful? Now now Jacklin Boseman
Speaker 2: is playing third good Marshall? What Google? It's like.
Speaker 1: Google.
Speaker 7: I think it came out.
Speaker 2: It's coming out.
Speaker 7: We learned from Nina, right, don't you even.
Speaker 2: So? My brother man think of this Jackie Robinson, James Brown,
Speaker 2: not Thirgod Marshall. Mm hmmm, playing man Della nuts like five?
Speaker 1: If anything, I would see what's your name from?
Speaker 2: Uh? Empire? Philly? Uhm, no, no, what empire?
Speaker 4: If you would?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know he's third good Marshall.
Speaker 7: Guess he was a natural with the didn't.
Speaker 2: Have a.
Speaker 1: Hudson Yo, it was yeah, that was main della. It
Speaker 1: was what Yeah, Terrence Howard and Jennifer Hudson they had
Speaker 1: they were winning in Nelson, Maine. Five man man Wait
Speaker 1: what we're gonna take care of a part?
Speaker 2: Tad main question?
Speaker 7: How can that be five mandellas, one Jackie?
Speaker 2: This a joke?
Speaker 1: Nonfer Hudson. Jennifer does she have an accent?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, if you want to call it that.
Speaker 1: And then and Terrence, how was Maine della? Maine della?
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that's a real question.
Speaker 8: How you have five man delas and one Jackie Robinson
Speaker 8: or one James Brown?
Speaker 7: A state wise fight? How does that work?
Speaker 2: The state has the power, Like, here's the thing, though,
Speaker 2: you cannot do a film a biopickbo Jimmy Hendrix and
Speaker 2: and drugs being it. You're not You're not gonna get
Speaker 2: the music. Yeah, you're not gonna The state will not
Speaker 2: give you the rights to to Jimmy hendricks music if
Speaker 2: you have drugs in the film, not gonna get it.
Speaker 2: So they just don't want a movie done.
Speaker 7: It was one done though it was the one with.
Speaker 2: Had no music in it.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's so with uh, let's go to school, say
Speaker 1: with Prince recent death, is that something that you thought
Speaker 1: about or.
Speaker 2: Out there? Could even you don't holland for me about
Speaker 2: the answer documentary?
Speaker 1: Yes, I cannot.
Speaker 2: I cannot do a feature film about Michael Jackson. Can
Speaker 2: I cannot do a film about Prince especially, it's just
Speaker 2: too First of all, it's it's too soon. And then
Speaker 2: who are you going to cast?
Speaker 1: Who do you think?
Speaker 2: I think Andre Hollan would kill it? He was, he
Speaker 2: was in. He was in that showed the nick he
Speaker 2: was also the first movie was Miracle Saint Anna. That's right,
Speaker 2: he was. You know he's serious. Andrea, I think Andrea bid.
Speaker 7: It is awesome. And he got some tools.
Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah, we'll talk about complexion. Right. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: out the old school. I think that we just can't
Speaker 2: discount our pigmentation.
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, Michael Max now.
Speaker 1: Close, they were close? All right, I'm putting this out
Speaker 1: there spite. Yes, I'm putting this out there. I believe
Speaker 1: in my heart and hearts. And I told this to
Speaker 1: first time I told this to her, she laughed. Second time,
Speaker 1: I told her. She's like, Okay, Now I think she
Speaker 1: hears me. I believe there's an Oscar waiting for you
Speaker 1: and for Leslie Jones. If you guys, do Anina Simone proper.
Speaker 1: I believe she is Nina Simone.
Speaker 2: You know what I see it. I told her I
Speaker 2: think she I think she could pull off that.
Speaker 7: Nina Simone talk about putting on a spot. That's okay,
Speaker 7: but I think she could do it.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: You don't have to you don't have to say nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm putting it out there, Spike. I believe that Leslie
Speaker 1: Jones in the position she is in Hollywood right now.
Speaker 1: If the right screen, prey and the right film you
Speaker 1: behind it. I believe you two can write each other
Speaker 1: the Oscar Tower. I think you two can ride each
Speaker 1: other the Oscar Glory and get the proper Nina Simone's story.
Speaker 7: Will the estate allow it?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 7: I'm stuckling as a state.
Speaker 1: Ship, daughters, But her art doesn't run a state.
Speaker 7: Just made Spike to a movie. He even thinking, but the.
Speaker 2: State they'll come on out. They didn't like what's her name? Well?
Speaker 7: Who did?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Her dard is not connected like the Caretaker had. You know, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was his story. He told his story that happened
Speaker 1: to Nina the.
Speaker 7: Moment espetually after the documentary, it's like, come on, bitch.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: Yeah, back back to Prince really quick. Has the estate
Speaker 6: been in contact with you? I guess they're looking for
Speaker 6: somebody to do the documentary. They have the Footageinete the
Speaker 6: eighty three First Avenue concert where they filmed or where
Speaker 6: they recorded in Purple Rain. Already told them Okay, well
Speaker 6: the audience hasn't heard this story, so no, no, I'm
Speaker 6: just talking to you as a friend, like I begged
Speaker 6: them to go to Spike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the not heard from the state.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're looking for somebody to do a documentary around
Speaker 6: this footage that they have of this concert where they
Speaker 6: have of Purple Rain was recorded. So I think that
Speaker 6: would be perfect for you after the Michael Jackson docs.
Speaker 6: So yes, I would love to see it through your eyes.
Speaker 6: So just putting that out there too.
Speaker 2: And I want to thank you for being very helpful
Speaker 2: with the with Off the Wall and Bad twenty five talk.
Speaker 1: Man, you're one of my favorite storyteller us.
Speaker 2: That's that, but you got you got stories too, man.
Speaker 5: Stuff Spike I have some old footage form my bar
Speaker 5: I did edit possible. You got some kind of something
Speaker 5: my family, give it the spill Bird.
Speaker 2: We got another music video to talk about what neither Baker.
Speaker 1: Which one we get into it?
Speaker 2: No one in the world.
Speaker 1: Because you're selling sons.
Speaker 2: Also in at the end of that video as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we shot that the world famous Apollo, which soon being
Speaker 2: called the Beginner.
Speaker 1: I really, now wait what.
Speaker 2: In the episode?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so bike, Yes off school days?
Speaker 2: Yes days was my four years at Morehouse jam packed
Speaker 2: into a homecoming weekend. Yes it was.
Speaker 1: Now okay, I've probably watched all of your directed commentaries
Speaker 1: at least ten times each.
Speaker 2: Why and.
Speaker 1: Because no Spanish list, especially well even even the Criterion
Speaker 1: do the right thing, like there's so to me that's
Speaker 1: better than college.
Speaker 2: And you know how you can learn. I I listened
Speaker 2: to director's comments. I mean you learn just yes for
Speaker 2: me real quick. One of the most important things I
Speaker 2: ever learned. Curis Sauer, the great Japanese filming Cursaw, was
Speaker 2: in New York promoting ron and as journalists, I think
Speaker 2: it was a New York Times journalists asked him, mister,
Speaker 2: mister kurs Sauer, you're consider one of the greatest filmmakers ever,
Speaker 2: A master cinema at your age, like eighty five eighty six,
Speaker 2: don't quote me. He said, what else can you learn
Speaker 2: cinema and curs I was said, there's still a universe
Speaker 2: of center for me to learn. When I read that
Speaker 2: ship that said the minute you should not stop learning
Speaker 2: to get dead. That's why I learned. And also Rachimone
Speaker 2: is really the foundation where She's gonna have It came
Speaker 2: from his film. This film in that film Waschimone. There's
Speaker 2: a rape and or murder and several people witness it,
Speaker 2: tell their story and lift up to the audience to
Speaker 2: decide who's telling the trupers. Well, she's gonna have You
Speaker 2: have these three men who are who sleep will know,
Speaker 2: and they're telling the audience, you know, what they think
Speaker 2: about her. So that's where that came from.
Speaker 1: Are your n y U classes similar to this, where
Speaker 1: you break down your filmography and you tell that the
Speaker 1: the mostly mostly other films.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to be just teaking about myself though.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, now, okay, I gotta get schooldays, casting school days.
Speaker 1: I just gotta jump to the scene. Now when you
Speaker 1: were given the director's commentary on the infamous Uh I
Speaker 1: want to be versus the Gigaboo. Well, the fight the
Speaker 1: Greek Show show. I mean I was watching it frame
Speaker 1: by frame, And why did you get the cameras running?
Speaker 2: Because she was good?
Speaker 1: Tell everybody what happened, okay, So basically the legend of
Speaker 1: the story. Let's tell okay, So why did you decide
Speaker 1: to separate them? But it really finances? Or did you
Speaker 1: have a mastermind that okay, this mastermind, I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: School Days.
Speaker 2: School Days was the first film. A lot of people, right,
Speaker 2: and we can be shooting on location, and I really
Speaker 2: want to keep the friction between the two groups. Don't
Speaker 2: wanna Bees and Jigaboos because they're young, they're first film.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to become too chummy, so I made
Speaker 2: sure that the Wannabes got a better hotel and the
Speaker 2: Jiggiboos got the less hotel. So, right then and there,
Speaker 2: that's where friction friction. They know, they didn't know that
Speaker 2: they found out the thing. So so the culmination of
Speaker 2: that friction happened during the Greek Show, the Step Show,
Speaker 2: as the fellows are coming on stage. Brandmret the Great
Speaker 2: gray BRANDFM ourselves grabs T shirt Camel's head and pushes
Speaker 2: to her crotch.
Speaker 7: Wow, that's what that's what she did in the scene
Speaker 7: when she.
Speaker 2: So when the gamma saw that, then it was on.
Speaker 2: So it was not supposed to be a fight. I said, Ernest,
Speaker 2: do not turn on that.
Speaker 1: Point keep rolling at point? Do you know how long
Speaker 1: did that fight? That real lass fight last until until
Speaker 1: we ran out of sere? You didn't stop it? You
Speaker 1: you were scared that they were like, I'm going fucking home.
Speaker 1: Did you save it for last or we we.
Speaker 2: Did not call the we did not cut off the
Speaker 2: camera to the film ran out of the magazine. Wow,
Speaker 2: so there was more.
Speaker 1: Where in the shooting schedule was that scene like in
Speaker 1: the middle.
Speaker 2: Of the order? Was there was definite bad blood between
Speaker 2: the two groups? Sad?
Speaker 1: What point did you reveal like, ha ha, okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I really did. Guys, Wow, the steel before
Speaker 1: they I mean they got regular. But I didn't make
Speaker 1: a confession though. Did they buy it once they found
Speaker 1: out or they just felt like, oh, you're being a
Speaker 1: cheap motherfucker and you like jasmine guy, and no they just.
Speaker 2: It really, I mean your dark skin, I mean you
Speaker 2: grow I mean you grew up with ship before you
Speaker 2: got before you got cast in the film anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: so we just want to play in this whole coloration thing.
Speaker 7: Did you write the chance your eyes are blue? But
Speaker 7: you a why they did straight?
Speaker 2: Because I think that was teasing Jasmine that that did
Speaker 2: that and the gamble you right there, that was I
Speaker 2: was a fellas. Wow, that was rand from ourselves. I
Speaker 2: think Wow, say went to the.
Speaker 7: Side and was like, Yo, this is what we're gonna do. Cama.
Speaker 2: They worked all their steps, They did that stuff themselves.
Speaker 7: Can you some of them words?
Speaker 1: Did you come under budget or over budget?
Speaker 2: I mean we're under budget on that one.
Speaker 1: Were dealing with Colombia.
Speaker 2: It was Columbia Pictures.
Speaker 1: Yes, so dealing with a real uh what do you
Speaker 1: call the studio? A real studio?
Speaker 2: What was there?
Speaker 1: Because I definitely remember like all Ebony and Jet there
Speaker 1: was like, you know, the campus, we disavow ourselves, disassociated.
Speaker 2: I went to Morehouse and after two weeks I'm a
Speaker 2: third duration Morehouse man. At the two weeks we got
Speaker 2: kicked off campus.
Speaker 7: But Clark gave you love.
Speaker 2: Clark gave us love, and Morris Brown Spell would never
Speaker 2: let us come on camp, of course not.
Speaker 7: I'm surprised you're not as you're not.
Speaker 2: And Morris Brown, which is which closed We shot there too.
Speaker 2: But here's there's The president of Morehouse's name was Howard
Speaker 2: Gloucester and at the I met with him at the
Speaker 2: kicked off campus and he was mad at me and
Speaker 2: he said, why'd you cast that man as a president
Speaker 2: mission college? Joe Seneca And he said, because it looks
Speaker 2: like a sambo.
Speaker 7: Wow wow, And that's when he got the situation. They
Speaker 7: got him.
Speaker 2: So everything that we were depicted in the film while
Speaker 2: we were making it, that's crazy. He called Joe a sample.
Speaker 7: That was a great actor.
Speaker 2: You're laughing too hard.
Speaker 9: I don't know what African American history and culture trip
Speaker 9: you word that ends.
Speaker 2: But you can't.
Speaker 7: You can't always laugh at that word.
Speaker 1: Depending on who you will whatever, I want, keep it.
Speaker 2: How did they get help you?
Speaker 1: There's a really good story online about uh Marcus talking
Speaker 1: about the struggle that it was to make the butt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of which I guess well, because the thing
Speaker 1: was it was like the oral history of of of
Speaker 1: of the butt, a good article, and I guess the
Speaker 1: EU guys were sort of like, well, you know, we're
Speaker 1: grateful for the single, but you know that wasn't real DC,
Speaker 1: Go Go, and we wanted to show you know what,
Speaker 1: and Mark was just like, well, you guys just do
Speaker 1: twenty minute jams with really no structure and you're based
Speaker 1: on other people's material.
Speaker 2: Now, yes, she's z She's formerly known as Chocolate City
Speaker 2: now Vanilla Swirls. Absolutely it' Rixton in London around the world.
Speaker 1: It has to be said that you know, at least
Speaker 1: from a good four or five year films, like very iconic.
Speaker 2: Story. But yeah, so true story. The premiere of She's
Speaker 2: Having DC and at the part of the nine thirty Club,
Speaker 2: ah man and DC excuse me go? And EU was
Speaker 2: the band. Wow, why never even heard Go Go in
Speaker 2: my life? Really? And when I went down, I said, oh, ship, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I was still I was writing and She's gonna
Speaker 2: I was writing school days at the time. I said, Yo,
Speaker 2: we gotta put E, we gotta put EU in the movie.
Speaker 2: And so I knew Marcus through Raymond Jones, the late
Speaker 2: great Raymond Jones, and so crazy thing. I'm a big
Speaker 2: I mean the color scene and She's gonna have a
Speaker 2: Homeoge Wizard of oz, So I said, we got to
Speaker 2: put this part and then I go see Signs of Times.
Speaker 2: So you based on not at a time came out
Speaker 2: this same time.
Speaker 1: Days, You're right because I opted to see Sign of
Speaker 1: the Times before my friend went to go to school.
Speaker 2: Days.
Speaker 1: I went to the Sign of the Times and we
Speaker 1: told each other about the film. Damn, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: How did you think he must have liked it as too? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He, I mean he's been doing that.
Speaker 2: He did that twice though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's been doing that.
Speaker 2: Chance, what else I can't remember? No, I mean it's
Speaker 2: going to be a beautiful night.
Speaker 7: It is that.
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean he all throughout eighty six he
Speaker 1: was That was his call response thing like in concert
Speaker 1: a lot. So he just captured it's going to be
Speaker 1: a beautiful night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yo.
Speaker 7: Two butt questions. But number one, how long was that
Speaker 7: video shoot?
Speaker 2: Was it like one day?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 2: We shot at Brooklyn Tech.
Speaker 8: Ah, And did you know at the time, because me
Speaker 8: and my girlfriend were literally just watching this video a
Speaker 8: couple of weeks ago, we were like, yeah, we didn't
Speaker 8: even realize that they were holding up the red, black
Speaker 8: and green flag and shit off the most A lot
Speaker 8: of young people don't even know.
Speaker 2: I invented that dance the Butt.
Speaker 1: Tell what the title should be?
Speaker 2: Yes, I had. I said, I want the song to
Speaker 2: call the Butt, and we gotta dance my mother's grave.
Speaker 2: I told Marcus the name of the song gotta be
Speaker 2: the Butt, and we got to dance and he did
Speaker 2: the rest.
Speaker 1: Wow, Sugar Bear, like that.
Speaker 7: My whole song.
Speaker 2: I would have taken production.
Speaker 1: Right credit say, you know everyone else did and they
Speaker 1: didn't even write overduce.
Speaker 2: So you play that part today, still get down, It
Speaker 2: still works. It still works. Eight. I have a school
Speaker 2: Day's question.
Speaker 6: Yes, so I understand that there was a little tension
Speaker 6: between you and Tsha Campbell's mother.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, did that ever get resolved.
Speaker 1: Since?
Speaker 2: Or no? During the filming of School Days? Okay? Oh
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. It was the song won't Belong Tonight? We
Speaker 2: should be the it was cold, but she said had
Speaker 2: to be teaching Kimbell. She said she'd be the Raise,
Speaker 2: and she said it should be teaching Campbell and the Raise.
Speaker 7: So oh that was her brief. I thought she's met
Speaker 7: her daughter. Had to lick somebody's part, so she.
Speaker 2: Just, hey, I swear to God, teacher Kimble walk through
Speaker 2: them now. She would curse every time. She was like,
Speaker 2: hate you spiking even today. I mean you came out
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Okay did she left out?
Speaker 7: How you know that?
Speaker 1: I will say that, like, good, go ahead. I mean, second,
Speaker 1: I don't throw the purple away your love scenes in
Speaker 1: your film.
Speaker 2: There's the reason why. Teaching Campbell. She wouldn't do a
Speaker 2: sex scene, so that was.
Speaker 7: The sexy she was gonna get.
Speaker 2: So I had to come on, I have to think
Speaker 2: of something freaky. So I said, well, you gotta increase
Speaker 2: in his head. Guy, she would not do a love
Speaker 2: scene more than that woman, So I said, all right,
Speaker 2: and you gotta lick the part big brother on my
Speaker 2: teeth that that even made it worse.
Speaker 1: I will tell you though, that's like, that's yeah, upside
Speaker 1: down Spider Man for black people. The cat.
Speaker 7: Again that Rachel's sex scene was also nice with mother
Speaker 7: on my tea.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful.
Speaker 7: In my head, the one rad Rachel.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Steve, you wanted my man Keith John
Speaker 2: keep the song only can be me?
Speaker 7: Oh that song right there?
Speaker 2: You know, Stevie's saying my wedding, my wife and I
Speaker 2: really as she walked about that show, we're still married.
Speaker 2: To beside Church.
Speaker 1: All right, we had another moment, we had another vote.
Speaker 1: Now you keep John back on on do the right thing?
Speaker 1: Why don't we try joint? I love that record. All Right,
Speaker 1: let's let's move. Maybe we'll get to six movies by
Speaker 1: the should also.
Speaker 8: Note with that the first time Ozzie Davis was introduced
Speaker 8: into Coach Oldham. Okay, I just because then I want
Speaker 8: I'm getting because the crew start accumulating.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sure we'll have a lot of regret regret questions.
Speaker 1: Come on, why didn't we ask, okay, do the right thing?
Speaker 1: That's a perfect First of all, thank you Spike, because okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I hate being that guy that can predict his own question.
Speaker 2: We had the crystal Ball in that film we talked
Speaker 2: about global warming. I mean I was gonna say I
Speaker 2: showed I showed that. I showed that movie to my son,
Speaker 2: my eleven year Rold.
Speaker 1: This was like literally like a month ago because it
Speaker 1: because when that came out, I was I think I'm
Speaker 1: the same age. I was like ten, so he's eleven.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm gonna show you this movie.
Speaker 1: That movie the thing and the thing I've always liked
Speaker 1: about all your stuff. I saw him as a kid,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's one thing, but seeing it as
Speaker 1: an adult has a completely different meaning. And I would
Speaker 1: say that Do the Right Thing is one movie where
Speaker 1: it is almost more relevant now than it was when
Speaker 1: it came out. And I mean even like and the
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was so brilliant about it even
Speaker 1: watching it, you know now is like it is a
Speaker 1: because I watched it and I made him write an
Speaker 1: essay and simple the only question was.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the question was you know, do you think
Speaker 2: Mooki did the right thing?
Speaker 1: And there is no right or wrong answer to that question,
Speaker 1: like you could argue it a million different ways.
Speaker 2: And well to answer your question, though, thank you for
Speaker 2: showing your son at the early age, at that age
Speaker 2: the film. But no black person has ever asked me
Speaker 2: why didn't throw the garbage can through the window? Only
Speaker 2: white people ask you question. Not one single black person
Speaker 2: ever asked me why did MOOKI throw the garbage can
Speaker 2: through the window.
Speaker 1: As matter of fact, I still pay Bill, still pay.
Speaker 2: Steve that way.
Speaker 7: Was this movie the first time did you had people
Speaker 7: in mind for characters or did it still just know
Speaker 7: I had?
Speaker 2: I mean the film Messenger, which Buckle never happened was
Speaker 2: supposed to start John Carlo and Fishburn. So I mean
Speaker 2: I knew had to put in a film after the success.
Speaker 7: Because I think about Fishburn.
Speaker 2: Turned down the roll right around him. He didn't want
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: Whoa wow, he said, no, I can't like I'm shooting
Speaker 1: the King of New York or I don't like it
Speaker 1: like the role.
Speaker 7: Bill noun Size made it like yeah, he definitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was it true that Danny A Yellow didn't want
Speaker 1: to take pictus with Chuck d for Press? I never heard, okay,
Speaker 1: I never heard that.
Speaker 2: For DeNiro, I wanted Rob Darrel do what he didn't
Speaker 2: want to do it. Wow, But it turned out, yeah,
Speaker 2: it would have been. Here's the thing though, with The
Speaker 2: Narrow when the greatest acts ever, But what it would
Speaker 2: have tipped the scale would have been the Robber of
Speaker 2: the Narrow movie instead of an ensemble piece.
Speaker 1: So okay for starters as and I was saying that
Speaker 1: I hate the fact that I can predict all these
Speaker 1: episodes the Quest Love Supreme, because I can't go an
Speaker 1: episode without mentioning Soul Train.
Speaker 2: And my.
Speaker 1: My nowsable wisdom of it. But you know, for the longest,
Speaker 1: I never knew what Rosie Perez's name was, wow, because
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they don't give the names of she.
Speaker 1: I mean she did a scramble board once. But you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that until like muchs later, like four
Speaker 1: or five years ago, that oh, there's Rosie Perez. So
Speaker 1: just for the longest, it was like me and my
Speaker 1: best friend in school was like our girl because even
Speaker 1: on Soul Train, she was a star, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: like growing into puberty or whatever, like oh my god,
Speaker 1: who's this woman?
Speaker 2: Dan?
Speaker 1: It's just that she stuck out.
Speaker 2: Literally, I got a story.
Speaker 1: More than so how did you discuss?
Speaker 2: Ever, there's two stories, Rosie story. My story is the
Speaker 2: real one Rosie. So again, it comes back to school days.
Speaker 2: School Days is a hit, mm hmm. The butt is
Speaker 2: number one song R and b M. So I'm having
Speaker 2: a birthday party in l A. I forgot funky It
Speaker 2: was named that club Funky Something. Anyway, I'm holding you
Speaker 2: guys anyway. So the club is called Funky Something and
Speaker 2: Eu we fly EU to LA for the party, and
Speaker 2: so we had a butt contest, but dance contests. And
Speaker 2: this woman is on the speaker dancing role. She says
Speaker 2: that she was screaming saying that this is sex and
Speaker 2: someone else, but that she was dancing. Mm hmm. She
Speaker 2: wasn't doing that stuff is just the truth. And so
Speaker 2: I tell security to get this lady off the speaker
Speaker 2: because she's gonna fall and break her neck. Okay, so
Speaker 2: bring her down, and she starts to curse me out.
Speaker 2: I've never heard this. I knew she was Puerto Rican,
Speaker 2: but the way I heard the way that I never
Speaker 2: everybody speak, like to poor my motherfucking life, right, So
Speaker 2: I said, where you're from. It's just Brooklyn, So I'm
Speaker 2: from Brooklyn. Said where you're from? I said what neighbor
Speaker 2: was just for I live for Green and I was
Speaker 2: writing do the Right Thing at the time, and that moment,
Speaker 2: I said, I'm gonna make Mookie's girl from Puerto Rican. Mhm.
Speaker 6: At that point, at that point, did you know you
Speaker 6: were gonna put Mookie? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: I knew, but I said she has to be. I mean,
Speaker 2: she had the audition, but I still knew that that
Speaker 2: she was going to be played Mookie's girlfriend Tina. That's
Speaker 2: the real story that a star was born. I knew
Speaker 2: that I knew that she was gonna be great in
Speaker 2: this role. I did not. I cannot predict that. I
Speaker 2: knew that she would be great as Mookie's girlfriend.
Speaker 1: But at that point, you didn't say, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is an Oscar caliber actress and she's made for herself.
Speaker 2: And we never talked about oscars. That's not the I mean,
Speaker 2: we don't talk about that stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, not that, but when you see new talent that
Speaker 1: but I don't And a lot of times the first
Speaker 1: films are yours.
Speaker 2: But I don't say she's going an Oscar. I don't
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: So do you direct? Like, are you the director that will?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: I know some what's his name? Who directed seven? And
Speaker 1: uh David fin So Fincher, especially on House of Car.
Speaker 1: Like his episode of House of Cars, he's been known
Speaker 1: to do fifteen sixteen seventeen takes, no, no, no, knowing
Speaker 1: that the last three are finally going to be what
Speaker 1: he wants.
Speaker 2: That seventy seventy eighty takes.
Speaker 1: For you No, no, oh, yeah, I've heard that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll he'll spend fifteen seventeen hours.
Speaker 2: First of all, I don't have I never had the
Speaker 2: budget to do that. We gotta go.
Speaker 1: Okay, and he doesn't need I mean, so you're saying
Speaker 1: that riot scene was shot in one shot. You had
Speaker 1: one shot to just know.
Speaker 2: It was like two nights we had. You had the riot,
Speaker 2: then you had excuse me, you had the when the
Speaker 2: fire trucks come in, the war stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So for something that tense, especially when you are with
Speaker 1: multiple cameras and that sort of thing, I know, there's
Speaker 1: a moment where it's like, you know, fuck you okay
Speaker 1: cut and then like okay, so everything's and like characters
Speaker 1: break now. For Carlo, Esposito said that because of the.
Speaker 2: Teach me.
Speaker 1: Gean Carlo, Okay, take two, keep it San Carlos Gian
Speaker 1: Carlo Esposito. So he he mentioned that during the filming
Speaker 1: that him and Danny did some bonding because of their
Speaker 1: Italian connection, talk to each other Italian, his.
Speaker 2: His, his father's Italian right, and then there was America.
Speaker 1: There was a scene well during that scene, uh, where
Speaker 1: the radio gets beat and finally you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think initially Danny decided to curse amount in Italian and
Speaker 1: said something to Sean Carlo that really just infuriated him.
Speaker 1: And even when you yelled cut, he was just like that.
Speaker 2: That ain't that. I never heard that story. But I
Speaker 2: will tell you is that there were certain words that
Speaker 2: people didn't want to say, and so we had when
Speaker 2: when John the scene where Danny has the bat and
Speaker 2: the close of him, Jean Carlo and Bill Numb were
Speaker 2: standing on the side of the camera and they were,
Speaker 2: you know, going exchanging and when Jean Carlo called him
Speaker 2: a fat guinea bastard, that's when Danny exploded.
Speaker 1: Oh so was Danny that was upset. He was upset,
Speaker 1: but he just don't liked me called the fat guinea bastard.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it wasn't in the script. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just.
Speaker 2: That you're off script by then you just just go,
Speaker 2: you know, just say the worst things you could say.
Speaker 1: So you have a lot of offscript moments. So in
Speaker 1: your screen places, it's just like, you know, we'll improvise.
Speaker 2: No, you don't write improvised, but you know that it
Speaker 2: comes to rehearsal, you start you see where we can
Speaker 2: improvise there. So here's the thing, though, not everybody can improvise,
Speaker 2: so you have to know who can do it who can't,
Speaker 2: and you work on improvisation improvisation during the rehearsal and
Speaker 2: heated moments, people gonna get off script because it's really
Speaker 2: emotional and you're not really worried about it. This exact
Speaker 2: exact words that are that are scripted.
Speaker 1: But if it okay, so at the table read through,
Speaker 1: are they.
Speaker 2: As heated as it will be? Because I don't want
Speaker 2: my does that worry you like this is to me?
Speaker 2: I don't want to act and read through. I just
Speaker 2: want to hear the words. I tell nobody act, just
Speaker 2: read the words. Because except for auditions, where when you
Speaker 2: when you audition people only getting you're not dition the
Speaker 2: whole film. You're just different scenes. So if the read
Speaker 2: through is the first time you get to hear the words,
Speaker 2: it is entirely there's a strange phenomenon. Reading the script
Speaker 2: is not the same as actors saying the word. And
Speaker 2: so many times you might think that you wrote something
Speaker 2: that's good, but an act of reads it's like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: I gotta change that. So during my read through, I'm rewriting.
Speaker 2: I might gotta keep up because like, well I'm crossing
Speaker 2: it out. We gotta change the gotta change that, gotta
Speaker 2: changes this How.
Speaker 7: Good of an Improverson was Robin Harris.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Robin was at this I forgot the
Speaker 2: name of the club, but Robbie Reid told me again
Speaker 2: the Castle. Nerec said, you gotta see this guy, Robin
Speaker 2: la So this club the club. To go to the
Speaker 2: the to go to the bathroom, you had to go
Speaker 2: up the stairs next to the stage. In the back
Speaker 2: of the club. In the back of the club, Robin
Speaker 2: Harris had a guy with a spotlight. He was he
Speaker 2: would like this snapper's fingers a point. And I was
Speaker 2: there one night. Robin Harris tore Mike Tyson. This Mike
Speaker 2: Tys was, I mean, you read a piece of your pants.
Speaker 2: Have to walk past Robin on the stage to go
Speaker 2: to the back. I mean, no better blues. I know
Speaker 2: we're jumping ahead. And even if you weren't working, if
Speaker 2: you acting working that day, but you saw Robin Harris
Speaker 2: was on the claw sheet, you you would come. You
Speaker 2: will be there, he would. I remember he told Denzel,
Speaker 2: he said, Denzel your he looks like a question mark.
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm making that whole scene when they at
Speaker 8: the after party and he just fucking with everybody like
Speaker 8: you know, the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, he he, oh, man is a
Speaker 2: great great laws Let not catch a nigga O. Those
Speaker 2: are old ad libs. I mean people like that. You
Speaker 2: just gotta let him go. It's like that's like Jordan's
Speaker 2: get green Light, green Light.
Speaker 1: So by this point, when you're established, are you putting
Speaker 1: pressure on Robbie to find you the next unused gym
Speaker 1: in town? Like is she going to theaters?
Speaker 2: It wasn't pressure because we always stashed away a couple
Speaker 2: of rolls.
Speaker 1: But are they you know, does does Martin Lawrence know,
Speaker 1: Oh there's an audition for Do the Right Thing?
Speaker 2: Or is it Robbie found Robbie. Do the Right Thing
Speaker 2: was Rody Preis's first film, Rob Harris first film, Lawrence
Speaker 2: first film. Rob Robbie found me. I didn't know these people.
Speaker 2: I know, I mean I found Rosie, but the other
Speaker 2: people I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 8: Also, as you're building your actors squad, it seems like
Speaker 8: it's harder and harder to get to get for other
Speaker 8: actors to get in right because like by now you
Speaker 8: said you already had Gean Carlo, you already had Bill Nunn,
Speaker 8: you already.
Speaker 2: Had John de Tururo.
Speaker 7: Can we talk about the tutoral relationship.
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna go there, Like how hard is
Speaker 1: it for your white actors too, especially especially in Jungle Fever?
Speaker 1: How they were at the silva shop?
Speaker 2: Like how?
Speaker 1: And and I know about the controversy of better blues
Speaker 1: you portraying the club owner.
Speaker 2: More Josh Flappers played by Nick and John de Tururo.
Speaker 1: Yes, how to write that down?
Speaker 2: Don't to get it? So I want to talk about that?
Speaker 1: No, No, that's the thing. It's like, how do you
Speaker 1: convey to them what the character is without saying like, okay,
Speaker 1: well you're going to be the villain or you know,
Speaker 1: play it to the hilt, or like, I mean, how do.
Speaker 2: You Here's the thing though, the white actors that I've
Speaker 2: worked with a great human beings. These are people artists
Speaker 2: and understand that their history, and they're cool plant it
Speaker 2: because it's not like we're making it up.
Speaker 1: But was there ever any indifference to or not indifference
Speaker 1: or objections to Okay, well you know who who?
Speaker 2: Where'd you find that? What a waste? Guys?
Speaker 1: The two cops, the cops that killed Radio that were
Speaker 1: also in Fever?
Speaker 2: What one is Dannie little Son?
Speaker 7: Which one?
Speaker 2: The one is not Hispanic taller one. Oh what a waste.
Speaker 1: That guy's Fender one.
Speaker 2: What's his name? I knew it, Miguel Sandoval. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, if you knew that name, this
Speaker 1: whole show would just be the cost No.
Speaker 2: The taller one, like the red one hair. That's Daniel's son, Rick,
Speaker 2: He's the one that yeah, oh man. But here's the thing, though,
Speaker 2: is that people dig my work. They understand it, and
Speaker 2: then they're they're they're great parts. In fact, John de
Speaker 2: Turroll used to say, you know, Spike Man, I don't
Speaker 2: know when it's when before the film came out, A
Speaker 2: said Spike Man, I ride the.
Speaker 10: Subway, would Spike the brothers come up to me, give
Speaker 10: me that. They say, yo yo yo, yo yo, soy
Speaker 10: they love the turle Yo.
Speaker 7: You messed it up so good. I don't know what
Speaker 7: they are. I was like, wait, are you Jewish? Are
Speaker 7: you Italian? I eat it too. I'm like, I don't.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing though, When mo better claim came out,
Speaker 2: I was accused of being anti su the Jewish Defense League.
Speaker 2: Uh aighty l. So my lawyer at the time he
Speaker 2: told me, he said, Spike, this serious, this is this
Speaker 2: is the truth. He said, Spike, if you want to
Speaker 2: continue to work in Hollywood, you have to write an
Speaker 2: op ed piece for the New York Times saying why
Speaker 2: you're not Semitic. I know it's not fair, wow, but
Speaker 2: you want to continue to work in this industry? And
Speaker 2: I wrote it? You could google it. Oh.
Speaker 7: I wish we had that kind of protection.
Speaker 2: Google it. I had. He's you know, he was Jewish.
Speaker 2: He died, but he said, Spike, you know you're a
Speaker 2: great filmmaker. I care for you. But if you don't
Speaker 2: write this op ed piece saying you're not anti Semitic,
Speaker 2: then you're done. You're done. Wow.
Speaker 1: Wait, done. I'm forgetting the most important character and to
Speaker 1: the right thing. It's the song, fight the power, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm about to move on.
Speaker 2: How did you.
Speaker 1: You know, like when you're growing up in the era
Speaker 1: and you just hear great music all the time, like
Speaker 1: you think of like a cat like Prince will just
Speaker 1: you know, eat breathing shit, great songs and hits. But
Speaker 1: now that I realized that it takes a craft and
Speaker 1: and and and really a steady hand to do perfection
Speaker 1: getting I mean asking a group to give you an anthem,
Speaker 1: I mean that's some that's some hard ass shit to do.
Speaker 1: And what's weird is that I guess later years when
Speaker 1: I've heard outtakes from songs that didn't make Nation of millions,
Speaker 1: and you know there's like five or six or seven
Speaker 1: other Public Enemy related joints.
Speaker 2: That where where can I hear those? Where does he
Speaker 2: get his stuff? He's hearing ship like me?
Speaker 1: Look, man, by this point, everyone knows that I'm the student.
Speaker 1: Like if I came off as a seisty guy that
Speaker 1: just you know, I'm leak the shit online and bootleg
Speaker 1: that shiit no one.
Speaker 2: Look, that's just a testament to people know that I
Speaker 2: just generally want to know stuff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, suit, you're a student of the music, I'll
Speaker 1: share with you. Bill, I'm sorry I didn't know anyway.
Speaker 1: So the point is that when I heard the other songs,
Speaker 1: I was like wow, Like okay, So Public Enemy did
Speaker 1: have some misses, the greatest missus, right, they had some
Speaker 1: missus with their with their hits, the songs that really
Speaker 1: resonated and the songs that were like Hm, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: glad they kept this off the record.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you could do it with any record, can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm now I'm just saying that the the
Speaker 1: the I mean the likelihood of them having five major
Speaker 1: life changing songs in a row is some rare ship, right,
Speaker 1: And the fourth one of their you know, of their
Speaker 1: of their canon being fight the Power, well revel without
Speaker 1: a pause to.
Speaker 2: Me, bring the noise.
Speaker 1: Uh, don't believe or don't believe it was necessary. I
Speaker 1: feel like bass heads.
Speaker 2: I feel like bass Heads.
Speaker 1: Is just insane. At the time that it came out,
Speaker 1: it was just unlike anything we ever heard before. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then the fourth being Fight the Power and the last
Speaker 1: being uh uh welcome to the territor tardo. Okay, So
Speaker 1: when how many songs did they submit? Did they submit
Speaker 1: other songs that they just said, like, this is your song.
Speaker 2: Well, here's a story. Hit me. I knew. I knew
Speaker 2: that I need anthem because every script, every time Raid
Speaker 2: Raheem appears on screen, he's gonna have a song blasting
Speaker 2: mm hmm. So every time you see a song be blasting,
Speaker 2: so that shit gotta be hitting and knowing to tone.
Speaker 2: I knew it had to be public enemy. So the
Speaker 2: first Fight the Power was the second submission. Aha, there
Speaker 2: we go. Have we heard the first one? No, I
Speaker 2: don't I don't even know.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to play it safe in the summer
Speaker 1: of eighty eight, like and be like, okay, rebel without
Speaker 1: a pause, We'll just stick to this story.
Speaker 2: And I wanted a new song and the first one
Speaker 2: wasn't hitting, wasn't it. But it wasn't their fault because
Speaker 2: we didn't. We didn't. We weren't at a point where
Speaker 2: we could show them the film. Okay, so earlier they
Speaker 2: saw a film, Yeah, they didn't see anything. I just
Speaker 2: I just did have a script. I guess ended Bill Stepney. Okay,
Speaker 2: because Bill Stepaney living Ford Green. So I called him up,
Speaker 2: got my bike, rode four or five blocks. Here's the script. Boom.
Speaker 2: He he knows that he remembers more of the story
Speaker 2: than anybody, Bill Stepney, So you try to get him
Speaker 2: his his his saying it. But but the second But
Speaker 2: we got to a point where we could show him something.
Speaker 2: I don't know, we show him a clip or a
Speaker 2: whole film. But once they saw that, Hank Shockley them, guys, do.
Speaker 1: You remember what your place song was that you use placeholder?
Speaker 1: Your placeholder song, yeah, that you used before you got
Speaker 1: the I.
Speaker 2: Mean like what you call timp music. We have it, Okay,
Speaker 2: we have any temp music? Oh so, because I knew
Speaker 2: that there's a thing called temp love. That's so I
Speaker 2: don't want I don't want to contaminate my I mean,
Speaker 2: I knew his music is I didn't have to fake it.
Speaker 2: When I heard fight for the first time, what was that? Like, man,
Speaker 2: I said, thank you Jesus, because this was the whole
Speaker 2: it's summed up the whole motherfucking movie.
Speaker 1: And he asked for none of this. Didn't asked for Elvis,
Speaker 1: John Wayne, none of that ship like you just not
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. Did you name the song
Speaker 1: and say I need a song called fight the power?
Speaker 1: They got that from brothers, But I just all I
Speaker 1: said was I need an anthem. That's a tall order spike.
Speaker 2: And that's why with the public X.
Speaker 1: Okay, the the pizzeria that burnt down, the fire, which
Speaker 1: I assume that you burnt it down for real, how
Speaker 1: did y'all control that since you weren't on a studio, Like,
Speaker 1: what's not that from.
Speaker 2: Spreading to the fire departments there?
Speaker 1: But the fire department that was Were they the actual
Speaker 1: fire department? That's weird, okay, But that.
Speaker 2: That song, I mean sometimes I don't even I can't even.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine Do the Right Thing with the fight,
Speaker 2: the power. It's not the same movie. It's not the
Speaker 2: same another character in the movie. It's a movie, I mean,
Speaker 2: but that it was a gift. It's a gift from God.
Speaker 2: That's that's all. I mean. You you should ask Chuck
Speaker 2: and those guys you know, but their their their version. Eventually,
Speaker 2: I'll get to that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Spike's film inspired Do the Right Thing inspired uh,
Speaker 1: the song that was originally the Roots before Scott Stortch
Speaker 1: gave it to his girlfriend Little Kim, the song that
Speaker 1: will eventually be Lighters Up.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Well, when we got to the studio, Do the Right
Speaker 1: Thing was on television, and uh, Samuel Jackson was senior
Speaker 1: ladder Love Daddy, and he was doing roll Call. And
Speaker 1: when I heard that drum by the time, I said,
Speaker 1: I want to remake that sit and so I remade
Speaker 1: it and my father, see Scott Storch, I remade made
Speaker 1: and Scott did the piano and then here's here's the
Speaker 1: crazy ship toik stay by to write the first verse.
Speaker 1: This is going to be like the first thing off
Speaker 1: tipping point.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Scott was like We're going to somebody's birthday party.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it that night is when I had.
Speaker 2: Dinner with O. J. Simpson.
Speaker 1: Long story of that night, and that was the first
Speaker 1: time literally we made that beat. And then we went
Speaker 1: to some friends of ours, uh birthday party, and and
Speaker 1: OJ and Buster the Rhymes and me and Scott Stort
Speaker 1: sitting at the small small kids take Thanksgiving. It was
Speaker 1: very and we were like the four black people there,
Speaker 1: so we just sat at the small table. All I
Speaker 1: got with that night was that he he said that
Speaker 1: that you know the way that the rappers, uh, the
Speaker 1: way that Bob Dylan Uh. And was it Patty Smith,
Speaker 1: you know Champion Hurricane Carter. Yeah, that us with us
Speaker 1: rappers need to get the sentence Champion. Yes, very surreal night. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Spike ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that encore presentation of a Spike Lee's interview on QLs Classic.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for next go round when we ask more
Speaker 1: questions about his history behind the count Spike Lee Part
Speaker 1: two come out next QLs Classic. What's Love Supreme is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by.
Speaker 2: The team at Pandora.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.