WEBVTT - Questlove Supreme: Spike Lee 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.440 Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.440 People, Citizens of the World. What's Up quest Love? Welcome 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:16.439 to a special Friday q LS Live. I guess we're 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.159 doing it in tandem. This will also be archived on 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:26.640 our iHeart podcast our special with Spike Lee Today. We 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:28.680 we haven't done this in a minute. We haven't done 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:29.639 this in the last two weeks. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.360 Long. Yeah, a lot. 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.960 When you when you let wait two months, it's been 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.239 that long? Its like it? 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:47.559 Yeah, thanks, I you know tom this I used to 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:48.080 laugh at. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:48.480 Uh. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.760 There's there's always two quotes that come from movies that 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.040 deal with jail Street jail Uh you know the one, 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.520 the one cliches like you know, they take your body, 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.000 but not take your mind. Your mind, that's what you 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.360 always hear. And number two is there's always two days. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:09.960 Only two days you come in and the day you 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.120 walk out, the day you walk out. 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.959 So yeah, I just lose track of time. You said, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:17.520 that's kind of. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.520 True, Like you, I said, what movie is that. 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:22.959 Every day you walk in? That's from what I heard. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.800 I know it from the wire the you only do 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.200 two days, the day you come in and the day 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:27.840 you walk. 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:29.119 Out the wire. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:34.160 I'm sorry that was our friend David Chappelle called us, Oh, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:36.360 speaking of. 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.399 The last two weeks eight four to six. 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot a lot has that. Well, 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.800 we have not spoken since. Uh the what are we calling? 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:48.200 Are we calling the uprising? 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:49.880 I like the uprising? 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.240 The uprising. I like uprising. I like that better than 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:54.960 riot because, you know. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.120 Protests, it's just something more progressive about it. 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:01.000 Yeah, and more act it, you know what I'm saying. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.640 I mean, because just because riot sounds like or protests, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.800 riot sounds like, it's just it sounds reckless, you know 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:09.760 what I'm saying, Like these people are just out here 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.760 rioting and being stupid for no reason whatsoever, you know 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:14.200 what I mean? 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.280 So I like uprising. 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.959 It's people that right, nobody wants to be what Donald 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:23.320 all right? Well yeah I didn't even I don't watch him, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:23.919 but I got you. 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:29.800 I'm with you. I was literally like, who's that? Yeah? 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.000 So are we going to do another episode on election 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.680 night like we did it four years ago? 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.040 Looking at the results we got from election night, I'd 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:42.760 say hopefully not, because. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.160 Like, do we do we you know, do we go 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.200 through that again or do we try and break the 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:49.640 chinks by not doing a show that night. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.440 Oh god, why trying to. 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.400 Break the I think it was Russia and the white ladies. 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.600 They're voted for Trump. But that's that's with us. 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:06.720 Yeah, who is our guest that night? I forgot Stephen Hill. 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:08.799 That was Steve Hill. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:10.919 It was also the same night my uncle got shot 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.400 and subsequently died like a couple of weeks later. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:15.680 He got shot that night. 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.359 It was like that was like the eighth I want 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.399 to say, and then he died on Thanksgiving Day. 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.560 Ship that was it was just that was just a 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.000 fun up day. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.240 And I remember it was like with with up Front, 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:33.440 with with up selling out right, that was the weirdness 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.040 about it. It's like the life and the funniest day 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.400 about life, like upselling. What do you call it when 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.160 you talk of the music on the radio? 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.440 The back cell? 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.920 Yeah, yes, I forgot. 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.120 I remember doing that interview when we were all sitting 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.160 there and everybody had like their laptops or their phones 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.000 or whatever, and we're all trying to keep it cool, 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.600 and you just see the ship flipping red results red, like. 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.280 Yeah, And by the end of the interview it was crazy. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.840 Literally in a three hour interview, the world changed because 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.920 that in the beginning, we were all like word up inside. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:13.760 And then by the end of that ship and by 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:15.880 the end it was a wrap. It was a rep. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.159 That's not happening this time, y'all, that's not happening. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.920 We should we should re reair that episode with Stephen Hill. 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:31.200 Well longer did that. At the time, Stephen Hill was 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.799 the hell of b T and at. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.880 That time, and then that's right after that, Oh wow, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.400 A lot, a lot has happened on that show, DJ 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:40.680 and a. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.599 Hell of a set on I G live. 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.359 Hey Stephen, I be there, Yeah, Stephen, He DJ is on. 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:47.840 He does. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.039 It's a little it's about eleven people watching. But you 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.160 know me and old boy uh news, Uh dude from 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:57.080 TV one. 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.120 Uh listen, it's all a battles. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.839 Roling Martin Yeah, Roland Martin yeah. Oh yeah, I ain't 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:04.600 going to that ship. Rolland Lord and blocked me for 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:05.960 calling him a nigga on Twitter. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.920 So I don't don't know your what notable people will 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.640 blocked you Twitter. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.719 The only one I know of I know. I remember 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.240 rollingd Martin did and this was years ago because he 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:22.160 was like, we deserve he just I don't have a list, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.760 like I just say things and people listen. 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:25.200 I don't. 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.200 I don't try to, you know, provoke anyone. But no, 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.120 he was just on Twitter. And this was years ago, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.279 this was before I found Christ. But he was just like, look, 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.960 we need to ban the N word and all this. 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.440 And I was like, nigga please, and that was it. 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.240 And and and he just you know, he he banned me. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.560 And he still banned me and still has blocked me, 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:45.880 which I mean, fine, whatever, But then. 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.640 Mc Hammer has me blocked. I don't know why. And 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.920 that was like. 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.320 Like Hammer, like yo, Hammer, if you see this Hammer, bro, 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:55.880 I don't know what I said. It could have been 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.280 a joke order, but look, man, I saw the too 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.160 legit to quit tour. Please haven't heard him tour? 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:01.880 Uh? 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:04.120 When I was in like seventh grade, it was you 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.760 boys and men and Josy. That shit changed my life. 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:09.839 Like Hammer, please all the forgiven, bro, Like, come on 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.400 the show, man, let's please please us. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.160 Don't hurt him, right, please hurt it. 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:17.800 I would love to have y'all come to Jesus moment 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.000 on this show, much like we had your Solange come 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:21.359 to Jesus moment on the show. 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:26.040 Yeah, would you even think that Hammer was even remotely 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.919 aware of who he blocked or what the situation was. 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.120 He probably had no fun. I'm sure he doesn't have 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.720 any clue. I mean it could have I don't know 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:35.040 what it could have been. It could have been a joke, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.320 it could have been whatever. But the bottom line is 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.360 I was following him c Hammer like, I mean, I 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:40.279 you know, I fucked with. 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.760 Him Hammer legend. But so if we get him on 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.480 the show, we straighten it out. Maybe it's usually get 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:46.839 him on the show. I don't even know why. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.080 Okay, I would like to get Hammer the other guy 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:54.000 on too, please from from even Roland Martin, Roland Martin. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:55.040 Yeah, let's get him on. 0:06:55.200 --> 0:07:00.240 Oh yeah, it's time. 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.919 I mean we can't because he don't listen. I'm not 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.920 I'm not ducking no smoke for nobody. I just don't 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.120 think because he's very he has very specific views about 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.560 about the N word and like coon and stuff and I. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.240 Don't use that word, but yeah, he's like very big 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:16.800 on those words. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.320 And that is yes, I use like nigga is noun adjective, verb, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:21.120 ain't ad verb. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.560 So listen, stand near you're doing. 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:25.880 Yeah, I'm like, come on, bro, you ain't about to 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.320 tell me what I can't say on the show we're doing. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:33.520 So, Hey, yeah, if we could work in with Spike 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:39.120 about the way Bamboozle kind of is relevant to I 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.560 mean a lot of ways, but especially to what's going 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.120 on like literally today like Cream of Wheat is changing 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:45.000 their logo. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:55.160 And Temima and the Washington Red Finally, yeah, I was 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.480 about to say, are the Redskins considering as well? 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:57.720 Yeah? 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.760 Yeah, everybody is considering it now, you know, like so, 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:06.440 but bamboozo was kind of like specifically about that symbolism stuff. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.200 That was a good pool. I didn't I didn't think 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.960 about that. Yeah, I know that. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:20.000 Uh that Netflix did their whole Black Lives Matter section 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.360 for Spike reason, you know, like get on the bus 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.400 and Rodney King thing and some of the stuff he 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:27.760 did Jango. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.600 Uh Jengo was done by. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:34.160 I. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:35.720 You know that That's what I was making. I was 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.640 just saying black lead because the Netflix section is no, no, no. 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.240 I just been like, Spike has his own wing in 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.120 the he has his own suite in the Black Lives 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.320 Matter hotel on Netflix. 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.200 Netflix is going above and beyond. You know, the President 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.120 just gave all this money to HBCUs. But most notably 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.640 the riches of HBC used more houses film and I'm 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:56.920 not mad. 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.720 I'm just right right. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.720 Yeah, man, wait a minute before we get Spike on, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.840 I need somebody to translate something for me, cause I 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.880 don't you know, I don't want to be tone deaf 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.280 and say I don't speak millennial. And on top of that, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.600 you know, I'm pals with this particular person. 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.920 Okay, can someone I'm gen x. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:25.079 X. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.160 He's gen X man, look it up. 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:28.840 Okay, I'm not going I'm just gonna look it up. 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:30.080 Go ahead, look it up. 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:31.679 I was born I was born in seventy eight. I'm 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.720 forty one years old. I'm like, he's gen X. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.040 He's US. I'm like, yeah, I'm like the youngest in 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:40.360 but yeah, I'm like right there. 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.960 But can someone translate this? Can you give me a 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.480 movie in the minute version of this? J Cole no 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:47.000 name thing? 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:48.080 What's that about? 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:48.319 Yeah? 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.800 I talked, come on, never mind too much? No, no, no, no, 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.120 it's not too much. It's okay, So moving in a minute. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.960 J Cole, no name, Okay, no name, and I'm just 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.240 giving context. No name did a talk which I did 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.280 not see. I just saw kind of the out the 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.400 out you know, the fallout of it. She did a 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.960 talk with Boots Riley on Live I think, and they 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.800 were just talking about I guess socialism and police abolition, 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.800 like they were just having a conversation. I didn't see 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.640 the entire thing in context, but the fallout. The what 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.480 I saw from the fallout was that, oh he was 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.920 over talking her and he was it just it went 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:30.520 left right. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.320 Then J Cole puts out. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.800 A song and he's saying, yo, it was this sister 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.080 on her timeline. She don't like the crackers, she don't 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.240 like the police, she don't like this, and you know, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:45.360 it was something about her tone that's bothering me. 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:46.280 Now. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.280 At no point in this song did he ever say 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:54.240 no name. At no point in no names tweets or 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.960 in her talk with Boots Riley. As I understood, she 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.199 had said something about, you know, with all these rappers, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.920 these rich rappers or something, you know, they they ain't 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:09.439 said nothing. But she never said his name or anyone's name. 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.360 So Cole puts out this song saying it's this girl 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.480 online saying this that, and the third out like her tone. 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.520 I saw another site put up and they were saying yo, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.640 J Cole is saying it's talking about No Name in 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.360 his new verse. Now, at no point in time in 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.320 any of this that he ever say her name in 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.040 the verse, and to my knowledge, at no point did 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.920 she ever say his name. So, as far as I'm sitting, 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.280 all this shit is just fucking conjecture to start right, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:41.480 it's just y'all niggas. It's all fucking speculation. So the 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.320 song comes out, people say it's to meet about No Name. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.199 Everybody lose this shit. Oh, he's policing a woman he's 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.480 watched talk about her, tone, police and all this shit, 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:52.480 and it just becomes a shit show. 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.440 So then the next morning, Cole put out. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.200 A series of tweets and he was just like, look, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:11:59.319 I said what I said. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:02.440 You know, all love the No Name. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:03.200 You know. 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.080 He you know, he was like, you know, she's doing 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.920 the work. I'm not a dude to be reading like that. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:09.120 And these are his words. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:09.760 He's like, I don't be. 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:11.439 Reading like that. 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.560 He's like, he's like, you know, red J Cole. 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:18.880 But he says in his verse, he's like, Yo, don't 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:20.280 let my degree fool you. 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.199 You know you can have you. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.400 Know, just because I went to college doesn't mean i'm 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.679 as up on these issues as everyone else. So so 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.840 that was so that was that, and I mean that 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:31.600 was it to me. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.240 Yeah, it was just a ship show for day and 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:34.920 I mean. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.559 I came in the middle of it, and didn't you 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.559 know was Donald Glover walking to the apartment on fire? 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.080 Like exactly, that's exactly. I was like, what in the 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:46.319 hell exactly? 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.319 Can I just say one month thing before we bring 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.320 the spike in because he's here. I just wanted to 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.960 say congratulations to old girl who created you about to 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:56.960 lose your job because I don't know if y'all heard, 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:58.560 but she found her family and they got her off 0:12:58.559 --> 0:12:59.000 the streets. 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:00.640 I was just really excited that story. 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:01.760 Are you serious? 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:04.520 Ship? 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:06.920 And she was like, y'all have no idea what that 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:07.440 did for me. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.959 So I wish I had her name in front of me, 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.160 but I don't, But I. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.560 I had no you know, I will say this just 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.240 to tap off big Upsta the girl that that with 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.320 that coin that you were about to lose or lose 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.360 your job anthem. The best tweet of the j Cole 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:28.319 No Name debacle goes to my man al Shipley and 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.840 he won Twitter. It's only like eight of us that 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.960 like got it, but it was a great tweet. He goes, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.199 and I quote the j cole lyric is something about 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.360 the Queen tone that's bothering me. It's problematic because nobody 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.360 questions Brian May's pedal board and amp settings. 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.120 And I'm bringing in bigger like that's it. I mean, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.960 come on, that's all you need to know. Like, that's 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:55.520 that's it. 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.319 That's what it is, and. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.080 Figure out that joke because that was a total like 0:13:59.160 --> 0:13:59.880 musical type. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:00.559 Uh. 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.400 It was that it was made for me and all 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.480 the people, all the people. Brian May was the. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.840 Guitarist in Queen and so the pedal board is the UH. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.960 Ladies and gentlemen, We are joined by friends of the show, 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:21.000 newly bestowed Academy Award winner storyteller Our Tour African American 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.200 Griot and always the UH. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.640 A cinematic provocateur. 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.800 UH, one of the last original storytellers we have today. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.120 Please welcome back to q LS Live and quest Love 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.200 Supreme UH for his second appearance, our pale and friend, 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.680 mister Spike Lee. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:42.400 How are you house? 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.040 Everyone doing? Everybody's safe? 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.360 Were good? Brother? Were good? You up? Are you right now? 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.880 Now? This is my office hearing the People's Republic of Brookly, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:53.320 New York for Green Baby. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.960 Yeah, Sames Fall. I visited with the baseball Mint in 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:57.520 the in the. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:14:59.080 Room, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but just one of the 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.200 editing rooms. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.440 I took a nap in everyone once I forgot what 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.120 I was there for. You you had a super Bowl 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:08.080 party or something, and I. 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:09.600 Faid, where's everybody. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:11.640 I'm at home in North Carolina. 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:16.480 Raley, I'm in Los Angeles, LA. 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:17.840 I'm in Manhattan. 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:19.600 Uh. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:25.320 And I'm in a ranch somewhere in Westchester on a 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:30.000 friends farm. But I just closed him on my house yesterday. 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.600 So yes, I'll be thank you. 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:36.360 What can I ask for? 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:36.840 Burrow? 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:37.800 Uh? 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:44.520 This is in Palisades, so yeah, I have to say, Spike, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.040 I believe that the last time I physically saw you, 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.400 I saw you twice, you were flying on your way. 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:59.000 I believe, just somewhere in Africa or somewhere overseas where 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.320 you told me that it was the first day of 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:03.480 scouting wherever. 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.080 I don't know where you shot the. 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.520 Film, but I was going to I was going to Thieland. 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.360 Okay, maybe I thought Africa. Okay, I remember you telling 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:15.840 me that you were going somewhere far off to shoot, yeah, yeah, 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:16.680 I saw you there. 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:21.320 And then at jay Z's party. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.240 No, no, no, no, I saw you in the airport. 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.320 Well, I forget where it was, but it was you 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.520 were on your way to scout for locations. And then 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:36.320 I saw you on the way back home, oh, coming 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:37.080 from it. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:41.080 So that's a police circle exactly. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.680 You gave me a synopsis on the way home, and 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.400 I was like, I'm trying to figure that out and 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.640 quest people still trying to figure it out. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:56.280 Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Okay. Look, okay, 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:57.680 So I got a question for you. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.440 What was the idea of naming all the soldiers after 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.120 the Temptations and Norman Whitfield like being stormy Norman? 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:09.800 You got that one. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:11.679 I didn't catch that. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:14.800 I didn't catch that. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.560 Look like, wait, what happened to five? And when a 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:20.600 good thing though? A great happy? The other day, Otis 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:25.280 Lee was called me, wow, okay, the last living member 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.200 of the Temptations, and he says, he told me, I'm 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.919 speaking behalf of all my brothers aren't here. Thank you 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:34.240 for doing that. 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:35.080 That's what's up, man. 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.160 It was out of nowhere, so out of nowhere. 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.960 One one question I wanted to ask you the last 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.480 time we spoke that I didn't what is for this 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.359 movie specifically? And I think the last time we spoke 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.400 to you, you were just about to launch. Uh, she's 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.360 got to have it on Netflix. So this is even 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:59.000 before Black Clansmen, even though you were still working on it. Okay, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.000 So I guess I can start with now, like now 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.080 that this is in the can, what what is what 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.400 is your what is your daily or weekly process when 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.600 it comes to conceptualizing. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.920 What do you want to add next to your cannon? 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.920 Like I don't know the name of whatever movie you're 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.480 about to do, but like, does the idea of start 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.160 in that room that you're in right now? 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:23.679 Do you sit for silence? Do you do you have 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.120 a a notepad where you. 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.160 I'm open, you know, I think that I've learned. I'm 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:36.800 qus I think you might forgot. I'm sixty three years old. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.440 I'm I'm in my fourth decade. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:45.239 So I've learned that I gotta be open when the 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.240 news comes. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.200 I just can't like now I'm gonna now, I gotta 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:56.399 think of an ideal. It doesn't for me, mhm, it 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:59.200 doesn't work like that. So I just gotta be open 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.399 to the muse. I trusted, you know, I trust the muse. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.679 So where did it start for this film? Like? What 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:07.960 was the he was we. 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.840 Were interviewing him when we interviewed you an Electric Lady, 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.240 you were telling us singing the Praises about nineteen seventeen, right. 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:14.880 That was the movie? 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:15.880 Is a movie? 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:16.800 That was the war movie? 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:18.200 That was a war movie. 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, So that's the question. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.359 Just being back on the mirrors question, I was like, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.200 didn't it start all the way back then when you 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:24.960 were talking. 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.800 To No No, But let me let me tell you 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.800 the story this is. I did not write the original 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.679 script for this. The original script was written by Danny 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.960 Bilson and Paul the Male. Paul the Mail has since died. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.160 Since he died before we started to shoot the film 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:48.199 of an Illness, they produced the Lloyd Levin option. The script. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.400 It was called The Last Tour and it was about 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:57.720 white Vietnam vets except one. They automatically brought it to 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.119 Alvar Stone Alice Don't sat on it for two years 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:06.240 and walked away. Lloyd Levin just happened to read the 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.120 article in the Guardian where I talked about one of. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.320 My favorite films, which is a Treasure Sarah Madre starring 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:18.879 Humphrey Bogart h and the tape There's a Gold that 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:20.240 the whole gold in this. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.160 Film was came directly from the trust Sarah Madre. He 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.680 called me up, said set you know, step a meeting. 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.600 We get we're getting ready to go right into Black Klansmen. 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.199 So we met with my co writer Kevin Wilmont, and 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:37.680 we told I told, look, I like it. It's a 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.439 great script. I want to change for me to be involved, 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:45.000 we have to change the viewpoint. This has to be 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:51.080 told to the viewpoint of African American Vietnam debts. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.800 And Kevin and I we wrote it, you know, twisted it, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:57.119 put some funk on it. 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:03.280 And Marvin Gaye, you know everybody and the world of 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:04.800 Senior result now on Netflix. 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:06.160 Yeah. 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.240 I love the way you use the barbing gay A 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:09.480 cappellas in the joint. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.280 Man was only there was only one? No, there was 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:11.760 only one? 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.600 Yeah, yeah, that was beautiful. Man. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.720 And you said you filmed this in Thailand, not Vietnam. 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.400 Right, No, mostly in Thailand, and we ended in Vietnam. 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:21.879 So can you talk about this? 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.960 I was talking to another filmmaker about filming in Vietnam, 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.639 and they were talking about since it's a communist country, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.639 how sometimes challenging it could be, like sometimes they have 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.800 people following people to make sure you're doing what you 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:33.480 say you're gonna do. 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:34.119 And what was that? 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.639 No, we never had that, but we had to have 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:42.280 the script passed through it as censor, so we didn't know. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:43.840 And we were up. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.879 There last week in Thailand and we still not gotten 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.960 the green light to shoot in Vietnam. But once we 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:53.879 got the green light, no one's following us. It was 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:59.320 all love. And it's also number one in Vietnam too. 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:12.840 Netflix, do you prefer Is this an adjustment to you? Like, 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.440 I know, I would imagine the same way for it 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.040 is for me making records, Like I miss the sort 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:24.040 of the romantic view of like having a tangible piece 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:28.119 of wax with an album cover or whatever format. I 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.639 mean CDs and cassettes are no longer there, but still, 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.439 like you know, for movie makers, I would imagine that 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:39.520 they still dream of you know, yeah, like looking at 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.159 the mark key and seeing their names and sort of 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.080 I mean, does I know Netflix doesn't have the same 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.600 cachet as going straight to video and you actually see 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:52.119 bigger results but is that at least an ego adjustment 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.879 that this is now the new normal for filmmakers where 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:01.640 you go straight to streaming as a proposed to inside 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.119 of movie theaters, Like does it feel different for you? 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:09.240 Or Netflix was the last place I had to go 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.240 and this every other studio said, no, coming off black class. 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.479 Even off even coming off of an Oscar Win. 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:21.200 Well, that's not happened. But we were nominated, right, okay, 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:27.880 six nominations turn us down, So God bless Netflix. Now. 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.600 Of course, no one knew the world was going to change. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:33.080 Mm hmm. 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:37.800 So a lot of people have films ready, but their studios, 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.160 which they made them for, does not have a streaming service. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.240 So because of that, and this was Next Six's film, 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:50.600 This film debuted all around the world at the same time, 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:57.520 before the world changed BC, not before christ but before Corona. 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:01.560 I was going to be the president of the Jury, 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:06.280 the first black president ever. And the con film festimes. Yes, 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.919 and this is you hear that, and this is in 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:14.800 the world and the world premiere of the Five Bloods 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.880 is gonna be income out of competition. The world changed. 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.760 But the answer will give you a more a deeper 0:24:23.920 --> 0:24:29.119 answer that you know plans change, and a lot of 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:35.600 everybody had died had plans. Twenty over twenty thousand New 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:42.000 Yorkers had plans. Over one hundred thousand Americans had plans. 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:47.320 All these people had plans. So for me, I'm just 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:51.879 I say, God, bless him alive and my family is 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:53.879 you know, That's where I take it. I don't mean, 0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:57.359 I don't mean to get any deep spiritual thing, but 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:00.680 for me, and how can I complain that my movie 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:02.439 didn't come out the way it did? You know, when 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:07.160 when people everybody had plans and the world has changed, 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:12.600 you know, and the ones that are here, the screaming 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:14.840 black Lives matter all over. 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:20.440 The world, right, facts, The timing couldn't have been more uncanny. 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:23.800 Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then another thing, another thing. I 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:26.360 know you have questions for me, but go down say 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.280 something right away to not forget it. People asking me, 0:25:31.160 --> 0:25:38.960 friends and journalists. Spike, didn't you, well, all this should happen. 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:43.840 Didn't you run back and shoot that Black Lives Matter scene? Wrong? 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:50.640 That is the first thing we shot. Wow, really, this 0:25:50.720 --> 0:25:55.040 is the slate of a camera. The first day of 0:25:55.240 --> 0:25:58.919 Princeville Talkley was March twenty nineteen, and we went to 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:04.520 May twenty first, twenty nineteen. So again the first day 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:09.640 of Prince photography was March twenty fifth, a full year 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:14.240 before we shot the Black Lives Matter scene and pre production. 0:26:14.920 --> 0:26:15.640 Wow. 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:22.240 So anyway, there are a lot of things that happen 0:26:22.280 --> 0:26:27.000 in this film. It's on some spiritual level that nothing 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:27.359 to do. 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:29.960 With that's happened with a lot of your films. Though. 0:26:31.440 --> 0:26:34.080 We were talking before, like before you came on. 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:38.520 About how Bamboozo and like how now we're seeing like 0:26:38.600 --> 0:26:42.000 they're getting you know, Uncle Ben and not Jemima and 0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:44.120 like getting all that out of the paint. 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:46.360 You know what I'm saying. And you were showing that 0:26:46.400 --> 0:26:48.440 you know that was you know twenty years ago. Are there? 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:51.320 You know you leave it out, You leave it out something, 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.880 do the right thing. We were talking about global warming. 0:26:57.320 --> 0:27:00.240 You weren't. You weren't talking about global you don't you know? 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:08.040 My friends called me what Nico domas to be like 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:11.439 you we talking about ship before it should even happened. 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:13.080 You did. 0:27:14.119 --> 0:27:16.920 Wait, that's okay, So I'll say like every other month 0:27:17.080 --> 0:27:20.320 I might bug you with the text asking why your 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:26.120 entire uh film uh, your film collection isn't in one space. 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:29.440 I mean right now is do you not think? 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:29.720 Now? 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:31.240 Is is uh? 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:35.440 And its twentieth in its twentieth anniversary, now's the time 0:27:35.600 --> 0:27:39.920 for bamboozo to come out again because I can't find 0:27:39.960 --> 0:27:42.320 it anywhere and I need to see it. 0:27:42.320 --> 0:27:45.280 It just came out and Criterion just put on a 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:49.960 great new blue rail of it, restored picture, sound, everything. 0:27:50.400 --> 0:27:54.119 Bamboozos is a Criterion Collection film. Yes what you did that? 0:27:55.280 --> 0:27:55.480 Yeah? 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.800 Man is in This is like two months ago. 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:02.160 This is a very suite. Like in my mind, I'm 0:28:02.200 --> 0:28:03.120 such a film nerd. 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:04.800 I'm like, wow, I wish one day I could be 0:28:04.840 --> 0:28:09.200 a Criterion film And now I will say that. All right, 0:28:09.240 --> 0:28:11.280 So living on a tour bus for like the last 0:28:11.280 --> 0:28:14.280 twenty five years, you know, you just buy any and 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:18.680 every DVD that to keep your mind occupied. So Criterion 0:28:18.720 --> 0:28:23.399 Collection is basically like it's it's it's the it's the 0:28:23.560 --> 0:28:28.320 upper echelon line Rolls Royce. Yeah, it's the upper echelon 0:28:28.560 --> 0:28:32.040 of film releases. It's like a committee that decides that 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:35.840 this particular film, regardless of it, of its stature and 0:28:36.119 --> 0:28:40.400 the box office whatever, deserves the royal treatment. I mean, 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:44.320 now you know companies are doing that. Now that you 0:28:44.320 --> 0:28:47.080 know there's twenty fifth anniversary of this in thirty. 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:48.600 Fifth Anniversity of Purple Raine and no da da. 0:28:48.960 --> 0:28:52.640 But like back in the day, when Criterion approaches you 0:28:52.720 --> 0:28:54.840 and says we would like to re release, it would 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:59.320 be like an independent label deciding, Okay, I'm gonna take 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:02.280 Fante's for a record, the first Little Brother record the 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:06.280 listening and give it the royal treatment, remaster it you outum. 0:29:06.080 --> 0:29:08.000 Cover great analogy, great analogy. 0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:12.760 Yeah and so uh wow, that's funny. It's always been 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:14.920 my dream to be in a Criterion. 0:29:16.440 --> 0:29:17.040 Be careful. 0:29:18.120 --> 0:29:21.640 Wait, can I just ask this question, Spike, because you 0:29:21.760 --> 0:29:24.440 more than me, but like you said, you are Negro 0:29:24.560 --> 0:29:27.720 domas And what does it feel like present day? Because 0:29:27.720 --> 0:29:29.320 we were just talking about this before you came on 0:29:29.600 --> 0:29:33.560 where Number one, we have protests, including all kinds of 0:29:33.600 --> 0:29:36.800 people outside of us. Number two, we wake up to 0:29:37.440 --> 0:29:40.200 no more Uncle Ben, no more an't your mama. Twitter 0:29:40.240 --> 0:29:43.440 says Junie teenth is a holiday. New York says June 0:29:43.480 --> 0:29:47.040 teenth is a state holiday. Like, I feel overwhelmed. What 0:29:47.040 --> 0:29:51.880 does it feel like? It's a lot? 0:29:52.160 --> 0:29:54.320 In other words, how many calls did you get? How 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:56.560 many calls did you get the last two weeks? To 0:29:56.640 --> 0:29:59.680 explain stuff to them, and how. 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:00.720 Many you didn't explain? 0:30:00.800 --> 0:30:02.880 Many rough drafts did you have to read to make 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:09.400 sure that this tweet was okay? And though here's my answer, 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:10.760 they barely. 0:30:10.920 --> 0:30:20.400 Motherfucker, Uncle Ben alone, Uncle Ben man. 0:30:20.440 --> 0:30:26.080 Right, you came with Jemima, she got a whole new look, so. 0:30:27.000 --> 0:30:28.080 You got a right. 0:30:32.280 --> 0:30:35.920 No the story. Actually, you know what I just read that. 0:30:36.160 --> 0:30:40.840 I didn't realize that similar to the family that won 0:30:40.960 --> 0:30:44.280 that settlement for the line Sleeps Tonight. 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:46.520 The South African family for writing it. 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:56.000 For the last thirty seven years, the family of the 0:30:56.200 --> 0:31:01.520 woman who was the original aunt Jemima Logo, who was 0:31:01.560 --> 0:31:06.880 also instrumental in them getting the recipe together, has been 0:31:07.000 --> 0:31:09.800 trying to like she's basically owed. 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:13.880 The minimum is at least a two billion dollar settlement 0:31:14.280 --> 0:31:16.480 for the last money. 0:31:16.640 --> 0:31:20.240 So let's let's see what happened. 0:31:20.720 --> 0:31:24.160 But white corporations, they're like the money way, like it's 0:31:24.200 --> 0:31:24.840 all right. 0:31:25.400 --> 0:31:27.920 Yeah, Like I don't know, I'm a shocked. I don't 0:31:27.920 --> 0:31:29.600 know whether to take people on their word, like it's 0:31:29.600 --> 0:31:31.000 gonna change in a week. I don't want to get 0:31:31.080 --> 0:31:31.840 used to it. 0:31:31.840 --> 0:31:36.320 It's very you know what it is like reparation cool 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:41.040 it's it's cool, but it's like, I don't I feel 0:31:41.080 --> 0:31:43.960 like this is more like a get out of discussions 0:31:44.000 --> 0:31:49.880 free card and go away. Yeah yeah, and it's not 0:31:50.040 --> 0:31:52.200 just going to be you know, it's like this is 0:31:52.240 --> 0:31:54.640 sort of like with the I voted for Obama, so 0:31:54.720 --> 0:31:56.840 now racism is over, and it's like, okay, well I 0:31:56.880 --> 0:32:01.120 donated Amazon's like a I'll give two hundred and fifty 0:32:01.480 --> 0:32:03.760 million dollars to this particular Da da da, So now 0:32:03.840 --> 0:32:09.280 races is over, there's there's still a bigger conversation to 0:32:09.400 --> 0:32:10.840 have for real change. 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:12.720 So I mean, yeah, like. 0:32:12.720 --> 0:32:16.280 It's it's it's cool now, but I still feel as 0:32:16.360 --> 0:32:20.040 though that's that's kind of a get out of discussions 0:32:20.320 --> 0:32:24.680 free card, and that's the deeper that's the deeper conversation 0:32:24.760 --> 0:32:27.360 that needs to be had. So I mean it's cute, 0:32:27.400 --> 0:32:30.440 but I'm watching very skeptically right now. 0:32:30.840 --> 0:32:34.520 Yeah, Spike, I always wanted to ask you after you 0:32:34.640 --> 0:32:38.320 one for Black Clansmen, Uh, being the director that won, 0:32:39.160 --> 0:32:41.960 you know, finally got an oscar like later in your career, 0:32:42.960 --> 0:32:44.320 what changes was it? 0:32:44.400 --> 0:32:46.040 Because or where there changes? 0:32:46.520 --> 0:32:48.960 You know, we've seen people that win them early and 0:32:49.040 --> 0:32:51.240 they kind of you know, it changes them, But you 0:32:51.320 --> 0:32:52.960 had been putting in the work for so long, and 0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:54.880 your track record already spoke for itself. 0:32:55.120 --> 0:32:57.720 So a lot of times a question, well you see 0:32:57.720 --> 0:33:01.680 a question between Black Class and the Five Bloods that 0:33:01.800 --> 0:33:06.200 you think that affected Kemy Wood affected the Five Bloods. 0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:09.320 But so but you said, had you won? Oh, we 0:33:09.440 --> 0:33:10.320 just fat you had nominated. 0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:12.760 You were nominated, but then they still passed, but you 0:33:12.840 --> 0:33:16.240 didn't and you won. I guess it was after was 0:33:16.280 --> 0:33:18.240 the Five was already in production when you won. 0:33:18.960 --> 0:33:21.920 No, the morning after, the morning after, I was on 0:33:21.960 --> 0:33:24.880 a plane that Thailand, Bangkok, Ah. 0:33:24.480 --> 0:33:28.520 Okay, Okay, I got even after you wan, it was 0:33:28.520 --> 0:33:31.280 still a fight to get your stuff without. 0:33:31.280 --> 0:33:33.800 Now the deal was done. I'm just saying that Netflix 0:33:33.880 --> 0:33:36.600 was the last one I had to I could. It 0:33:36.720 --> 0:33:39.200 was doing else to go to. 0:33:38.320 --> 0:33:38.760 Too, you know. 0:33:38.920 --> 0:33:42.000 So we won the Oscar. We partied that night. That 0:33:42.200 --> 0:33:45.320 morning I never went to bed, packed my bags and 0:33:45.440 --> 0:33:47.640 was on a plane that Bangkok, Thailand. 0:33:48.400 --> 0:33:51.120 It was l a X. Now I'm sorry, okay. 0:33:51.360 --> 0:33:56.000 And so my production, my great productions, I to win 0:33:56.080 --> 0:33:59.360 Thomas whose first film was She's Gonna Have It in 0:33:59.400 --> 0:34:04.960 nineteen eighties. My climatoger Tom Siegel. They had been in 0:34:05.240 --> 0:34:09.160 Bangkock for four weeks already. The Anxis too had to 0:34:09.200 --> 0:34:11.160 do the Oscar shit, so I had to catch up. 0:34:12.000 --> 0:34:14.800 So minute I landed in Bangkock, in that one hundred 0:34:14.800 --> 0:34:19.480 degrees hit outside the head, that Oscar stuff out the 0:34:19.520 --> 0:34:23.200 fucking window, it was over here. I had to catch 0:34:23.360 --> 0:34:27.399 up because we get ready shoot a movie. So all 0:34:27.440 --> 0:34:32.800 the Oscar stuff between Lax and ban Cock was gone. 0:34:33.160 --> 0:34:33.440 Wow. 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:36.480 I guess it would be more apt to ask an actor, 0:34:36.480 --> 0:34:37.960 what kind of director are you? 0:34:38.120 --> 0:34:39.200 Are you the director that? 0:34:40.160 --> 0:34:40.319 Well? 0:34:40.360 --> 0:34:41.399 No, no, no, no, okay, so. 0:34:41.400 --> 0:34:44.520 I answered, I can't answer that, I asked. 0:34:44.600 --> 0:34:48.120 I asked Paul Thomas answer this question like he Paul 0:34:48.160 --> 0:34:51.919 Thomas pt Anderson is the type of guy that will 0:34:51.960 --> 0:34:58.040 do twenty takes of the same scene because he knows, 0:34:58.120 --> 0:35:00.960 by like the thirty team time, there will be a 0:35:00.960 --> 0:35:02.400 certain rhythm that feels natural. 0:35:03.000 --> 0:35:06.080 But the level of intensity that you. 0:35:06.120 --> 0:35:09.840 Got Delroy Lindo did really give you in this film 0:35:09.880 --> 0:35:18.040 his most Yeah, his most, so, like how many takes 0:35:18.040 --> 0:35:20.440 does it take to get him to that level? 0:35:20.520 --> 0:35:23.600 Like was this just take one he was on? Or 0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:24.800 it took a few times. 0:35:25.320 --> 0:35:28.040 I mean, I'll give more than one take. But here's 0:35:28.080 --> 0:35:32.120 the thing. This is my fourth film with Delroy, but 0:35:32.680 --> 0:35:36.839 it's been twenty five years between this and the last one. 0:35:37.760 --> 0:35:42.400 Delroy first worked with me played Western Archie, Yeah, Malcolm 0:35:42.520 --> 0:35:46.360 xIC great. He was in Clocks, played the drug Kingpinn. 0:35:46.440 --> 0:35:52.240 Also played my actual Fatherokly Forgot about Crookly. 0:35:52.960 --> 0:35:57.200 He played my father in All you guys, Lazy and Jim. 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:00.600 You all notice that you can have great talent, but 0:36:00.800 --> 0:36:04.319 sometimes you get lost in the sauce. Putting in work, 0:36:04.440 --> 0:36:08.919 putting in work, but you get that that vehicle. Mm hmm, 0:36:09.480 --> 0:36:13.440 you get that role. Thats been putting work w r 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:14.040 K for. 0:36:14.040 --> 0:36:25.640 The get been here sorry fighting the air. 0:36:29.000 --> 0:36:34.000 Delroy did not fall off the truck. He's been putting 0:36:34.000 --> 0:36:39.319 in work and this role he had the vehicle. He 0:36:39.440 --> 0:36:41.520 took it to another level and he was in his own. 0:36:42.719 --> 0:36:45.279 Can we talk about casting, because I was going to say, 0:36:45.280 --> 0:36:47.640 how did you in your mind? 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:51.000 Like, how did you how did you decide that this 0:36:51.200 --> 0:36:52.720 was the right ensemble for you. 0:36:53.320 --> 0:36:56.480 I've worked with them three other times. I know I 0:36:56.520 --> 0:37:00.000 know what he could do first ten experience. 0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:03.239 But Spike, on fairness, you've done so many movies with 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:06.400 such a large collective of actors that you have a 0:37:06.560 --> 0:37:08.560 vat that you could have picked out of. 0:37:08.640 --> 0:37:12.920 I mean, you know from Laurence Fishburne of people that 0:37:13.000 --> 0:37:13.680 could have Nah. 0:37:13.960 --> 0:37:15.759 We me and my wife we were talking the other 0:37:15.880 --> 0:37:19.080 night and last night we were watching I think they've 0:37:19.120 --> 0:37:21.160 been showing She They've been showing He Got Game a 0:37:21.200 --> 0:37:24.120 lot on HBO now, like they've been showing that a lot. 0:37:24.600 --> 0:37:27.719 And we were just talking like how you you were 0:37:27.800 --> 0:37:31.239 kind of like the Miles Davis of in terms of 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:33.400 like a talent scout, like what Miles Davis was the 0:37:33.480 --> 0:37:36.319 jazz and being able to see Herbie, to see Cole Trank, 0:37:36.640 --> 0:37:40.319 like the dudes and the actresses and actors that you pick, 0:37:40.920 --> 0:37:43.200 you know, the stuff that they go on to do 0:37:43.320 --> 0:37:45.480 after working with you, and you know what I mean, 0:37:45.560 --> 0:37:49.279 it is incredible. And one actor that you chose for 0:37:49.320 --> 0:37:52.279 the Five Bloods that I love is Jonathan Majrix who 0:37:52.280 --> 0:37:56.000 plays the son. How how did you pick him and 0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:58.080 what was what was the thing you saw in him 0:37:58.120 --> 0:38:01.040 that was like, Yo, he's the one O Delroy. 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:05.560 Jonathan Major. Have you seen San Francisco? 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:11.160 I have the place I didn't see him in that 0:38:11.239 --> 0:38:12.840 film after the audition. 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:16.520 That's why I thought you chose him. 0:38:16.960 --> 0:38:23.040 No. Casting director Kim Coleman, Wow, I just wanted to, 0:38:23.200 --> 0:38:29.000 you know, let's talk but but but talk about I mean, 0:38:29.040 --> 0:38:33.239 here's the thing. Do the right thing? Was Rosie President's 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:36.560 first film, had the late Great Robin Harsh's first film, 0:38:37.360 --> 0:38:41.680 Mark lawrence first film, Jungle Fee was Howie Berry's first film, 0:38:42.239 --> 0:38:45.919 Queenly Chiefess first film, and we can go on and 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:52.960 on and Barry Gory Yeah, but John that was that 0:38:53.080 --> 0:38:57.319 was his first one. But yeah, but still so I 0:38:57.400 --> 0:39:01.400 just have when I get the vibe, you know, I 0:39:01.440 --> 0:39:04.360 know that's somebody want to work with and work with again. 0:39:05.480 --> 0:39:09.040 I would like to know what's the barometer for I mean, 0:39:09.040 --> 0:39:12.840 I would think that having a ninety two in Rotten Tomatoes, 0:39:13.760 --> 0:39:15.359 I mean it doesn't doesn't. 0:39:15.120 --> 0:39:15.719 Hurt at all. 0:39:16.120 --> 0:39:18.879 But what is what is the barometer now that there 0:39:18.960 --> 0:39:25.719 isn't a box office listing per se to determine if 0:39:25.719 --> 0:39:28.000 a film does well or not does well? Like, how 0:39:28.080 --> 0:39:31.440 do you what's what's the what's the new standard or 0:39:31.480 --> 0:39:31.920 the number? 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:39.360 Well this is I heard that our opening box offers 0:39:40.239 --> 0:39:45.840 if you could make analogy from the people saw it 0:39:45.960 --> 0:39:51.000 on Netflix to people buying a ticket, we open up 0:39:51.120 --> 0:39:56.359 like one hundred and twenty five million dollars weekend. Real good, 0:39:56.600 --> 0:39:58.359 it very good. OK. 0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:00.520 Yeah, I just want to know, But is it good 0:40:00.640 --> 0:40:05.120 enough for Netflix to say let's make it? Are you 0:40:05.239 --> 0:40:06.319 just say one at a time? 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:09.239 No, no, no, I mean it. It's there's love again, 0:40:09.320 --> 0:40:13.360 I said before no one else wanted to do this film. 0:40:13.920 --> 0:40:18.840 In light of his new studio in Atlanta? Did you 0:40:19.040 --> 0:40:21.839 take it down to Noah? 0:40:22.440 --> 0:40:22.600 Was? 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:22.920 It was? 0:40:24.000 --> 0:40:24.040 No? 0:40:24.320 --> 0:40:27.520 And that's no direspect to my brother, because. 0:40:27.320 --> 0:40:31.080 Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no quest It's all love, baby, 0:40:32.120 --> 0:40:33.680 And I just want to say something that you know in. 0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:38.560 This suddenly showed me and Tyler a mad cool. That 0:40:38.640 --> 0:40:42.960 beat was splashed years ago. I called him up out 0:40:42.960 --> 0:40:46.840 of the blue. He said, I said, you gotta talk. 0:40:47.760 --> 0:40:49.880 I jumped, put my ass, my black guys. 0:40:49.719 --> 0:40:51.960 On a plane from La Guardian in Atlanta. 0:40:53.360 --> 0:40:58.040 Went out to his mansion. We sat down, talked brother 0:40:58.120 --> 0:40:58.840 the brother. 0:41:00.120 --> 0:41:03.640 Man a black man, gave each other hug and for 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:05.920 nothing but love ever since. 0:41:06.480 --> 0:41:06.840 To get it. 0:41:07.040 --> 0:41:10.080 Remember this, he did not, you know, all that big 0:41:10.120 --> 0:41:13.799 complex he has. He not had to put my name 0:41:14.560 --> 0:41:16.920 on a studio, on one of the studios, one of 0:41:16.960 --> 0:41:19.879 those stages he had to do that, so. 0:41:20.320 --> 0:41:22.400 Because there would be no Tyler not for you, but 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:22.839 he did. 0:41:23.600 --> 0:41:26.919 But that it wasn't even about that. I know, It's 0:41:27.000 --> 0:41:31.120 just it's love. I did not want to put Tyler 0:41:31.160 --> 0:41:32.759 in a position You're like come on. 0:41:33.360 --> 0:41:33.520 Like. 0:41:35.200 --> 0:41:40.200 Yeah, but I would think. My thing is that if 0:41:40.239 --> 0:41:44.760 you if you're I mean, okay, so establishing the studios. 0:41:45.560 --> 0:41:48.520 Here's the thing though, when I when I answer that 0:41:48.640 --> 0:41:52.960 and let me if I can adjust that answer, I 0:41:53.120 --> 0:41:54.000 was I. 0:41:53.920 --> 0:41:56.880 Was only asking because I know that he has the 0:41:56.920 --> 0:41:59.680 complex up and he's open for business. 0:42:00.480 --> 0:42:02.560 But then I was kind of wondering, like what's step two? 0:42:02.600 --> 0:42:08.400 Is step two now like for future for directors and screenwriters, 0:42:08.480 --> 0:42:10.960 like do they is it a studio in the terms 0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:14.320 of like MGM, like do you is he an option 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:14.960 to take it to? 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:16.719 Or is Georgia is. 0:42:16.719 --> 0:42:18.680 Just Georgia stop you from wanting to go down there 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:20.160 because of their laws and what they do and the 0:42:20.200 --> 0:42:22.080 women's suppression on their bodies and whatnot. 0:42:22.120 --> 0:42:25.120 Because some people are considering that too. I'm just saying 0:42:25.120 --> 0:42:27.720 it is an actor that they. 0:42:27.360 --> 0:42:31.719 True, I don't I can't ask that question. I don't 0:42:31.719 --> 0:42:35.320 know if you know, is the studio in the centuries 0:42:35.400 --> 0:42:39.560 also financing films or is it that? 0:42:40.800 --> 0:42:43.440 Is it just a place to shoot? That's my question. 0:42:44.000 --> 0:42:45.760 I don't know if he was the studio in terms 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:48.720 of I don't know Warner Brothers or MGM. 0:42:48.840 --> 0:42:49.919 That's what I was trying to ask. 0:42:50.040 --> 0:42:52.040 I don't think he was. I didn't think he was yet. 0:42:52.440 --> 0:42:54.480 So that's just the place to shoot if you want 0:42:54.520 --> 0:42:54.880 to shoot. 0:42:55.040 --> 0:42:56.800 So now, I mean, I don't know what the his 0:42:56.800 --> 0:42:57.319 his his. 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:01.680 The end game of it all. Okay, I want to vacuum. 0:43:02.120 --> 0:43:02.840 That's all I wanted to do. 0:43:03.400 --> 0:43:06.399 When you did well, kind of following up on that question, 0:43:06.440 --> 0:43:08.919 when you did X and you know, as we talked 0:43:09.000 --> 0:43:11.719 last time, you was like you call call folke up, Like, Yo, 0:43:11.719 --> 0:43:13.600 it's station time, let's get it, you know what I mean? 0:43:14.120 --> 0:43:14.400 Uh? 0:43:14.640 --> 0:43:17.799 Was there ever consideration after that of saying, well, if 0:43:17.840 --> 0:43:20.960 we can come together to do this, why don't we 0:43:21.080 --> 0:43:24.520 keep going? What are some of the challenges in self 0:43:24.520 --> 0:43:27.359 funding and put doing stuff like that? 0:43:28.600 --> 0:43:33.960 The challenge is really most people lose money when you 0:43:34.040 --> 0:43:37.640 invest in the film, okay, and very few of us 0:43:37.719 --> 0:43:41.399 have disposable income where they could just write a check 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:43.719 and like not even be you know, hurt. 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:44.920 Just take them losses. 0:43:45.000 --> 0:43:48.120 Yeah, so it's it's Look, it's not. This thing's been 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:53.440 a struggle since sixteen nineteen when that first ship lanted 0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:56.840 James thom Virginia. And if history has tost anything, you know, 0:43:56.920 --> 0:43:59.960 it's the struggle continues. We take it by day by day. 0:44:00.040 --> 0:44:02.320 It was like, you're not gonna chop down a redwood 0:44:02.320 --> 0:44:05.759 tree with that first wing. We gotta be John hearing 0:44:05.800 --> 0:44:08.239 like a motherfucker though, right? 0:44:09.160 --> 0:44:11.959 Can I ask you that the Five bloods real quick? 0:44:12.200 --> 0:44:13.279 It's a in the movie. 0:44:13.320 --> 0:44:15.120 It's a picture of Delroy has shown it looked like 0:44:15.160 --> 0:44:18.600 he was. Actually he actually served in the military. Is 0:44:18.719 --> 0:44:19.320 that the case? 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:25.399 Yeah? That was from American graffeiti too? What? 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:28.719 Wow? I didn't know if there was an American graffiti too. 0:44:29.120 --> 0:44:36.479 Wait see what we found it? There is such a thing. Yes, 0:44:37.600 --> 0:44:39.480 how come I don't know about this because I've never 0:44:39.520 --> 0:44:40.560 heard America graffiti too? 0:44:41.680 --> 0:44:43.879 Google Google, I am dB sugar. 0:44:45.080 --> 0:44:46.560 Computer too on a computer? 0:44:46.760 --> 0:44:48.920 You know you want to, but he's not talking. Let 0:44:49.000 --> 0:44:49.360 him do it. 0:44:50.680 --> 0:44:51.799 I haven't I haven't seen that. 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:54.719 I haven't seen that movie, but I have the soundtrack 0:44:54.800 --> 0:44:56.920 for it. So if there's a soundtrack for it in 0:44:57.000 --> 0:44:59.640 my period. 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:03.440 Real did you use any Vietnamese actors. 0:45:03.800 --> 0:45:05.040 Wow, a more American. 0:45:05.920 --> 0:45:08.920 You're right, everybody was Vietnamese. 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:10.600 So then okay, so this is this leads to my 0:45:10.640 --> 0:45:11.160 next question. 0:45:11.200 --> 0:45:13.680 Then the scene on the boat with del Roy and 0:45:13.719 --> 0:45:17.160 the god selling the chickens, right, it seemed to me 0:45:17.360 --> 0:45:19.359 did you ever have to have a off camera come 0:45:19.360 --> 0:45:22.520 to Jesus moment with the cast because history is so 0:45:22.640 --> 0:45:24.480 deep in that way and y'all were shooting in Vietnam 0:45:24.520 --> 0:45:27.560 and some of these Vietnamese actors do have a history 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:29.920 with this war in that way because it was it 0:45:29.960 --> 0:45:32.120 was so you know, it's so emotional part about you 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:34.520 killed my father and my mother body thought chicken? 0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:38.479 I told I told my brother to use that because 0:45:38.520 --> 0:45:42.920 he didn't speak that much English, but I said, black Gi, 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:44.360 black Gi. 0:45:45.000 --> 0:45:46.799 Right, Were there real moments about it. 0:45:50.080 --> 0:45:51.360 Was? Because there's history? 0:45:51.920 --> 0:45:52.720 Yeah. 0:45:52.920 --> 0:45:56.400 I mean one of the key lines everybody in the 0:45:56.440 --> 0:45:59.800 film is a war never ends. 0:46:00.880 --> 0:46:03.560 And we had a Vietnamese brother, Ben say that line. 0:46:04.080 --> 0:46:08.400 People in America in Vietnam is still deal with this 0:46:08.480 --> 0:46:11.120 war is coming on fifty years from them, fifty years ago. 0:46:11.760 --> 0:46:15.600 Another thing that I learned very quickly that if you're 0:46:15.640 --> 0:46:19.600 in Vietnam and you say the Vietnam War. They say, no, no, no. 0:46:19.360 --> 0:46:20.319 No American War. 0:46:21.160 --> 0:46:25.560 We call it their American War. We did not go 0:46:25.920 --> 0:46:29.520 the motherfucker United States in America. You motherfuckers came here, 0:46:30.520 --> 0:46:33.359 got your ass kicked. And before that, the French came 0:46:33.440 --> 0:46:35.120 here and got the ass kicked. 0:46:36.960 --> 0:46:38.759 You did mention that was mentioned in the movie while 0:46:38.800 --> 0:46:40.000 they speak. 0:46:39.840 --> 0:46:46.080 The French, the French colonized Vietnam. If you, I mean, 0:46:46.120 --> 0:46:48.759 if you look when you get a chance, we get 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:53.520 a chance, get look at your globe, globe that's cute, 0:46:54.160 --> 0:46:59.280 or you just go to your Google a world map. 0:47:00.600 --> 0:47:03.000 Look how big Vietnam is. 0:47:04.440 --> 0:47:04.960 I'm looking. 0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:10.600 Wow, Okay, what state you think? 0:47:11.320 --> 0:47:14.520 What's the question? You got it? What state you think 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:16.920 it's comfortable in size to Vietnam? 0:47:17.120 --> 0:47:22.000 I guess by the looks of it. 0:47:21.440 --> 0:47:27.239 I mean not Texas, for Texas bigger than Vietnam. I'm 0:47:27.239 --> 0:47:29.680 looking one of the smaller states. 0:47:30.000 --> 0:47:32.800 Yeah, this is This could be up in New England somewhere. 0:47:33.640 --> 0:47:37.399 Mm hmmm. So just say, like four guests, maybe it's 0:47:37.440 --> 0:47:44.920 the size of the Rhode Island or New Hampshire, Vermont, 0:47:45.480 --> 0:47:51.520 that is the size of Vietnam. They kicked mothers. 0:47:52.200 --> 0:47:52.359 Yea. 0:47:56.320 --> 0:47:58.520 They know when you came to be like Spike Lee. 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:02.800 Some did, some did, but we made a conscious effort 0:48:02.960 --> 0:48:07.360 in this film not to dehumanize being these people, not 0:48:07.520 --> 0:48:12.240 to make them villains. We treat them with love, respect, 0:48:12.280 --> 0:48:13.400 and we got that in return. 0:48:14.640 --> 0:48:14.839 Uh. 0:48:15.040 --> 0:48:18.200 One question I had about your because you say, you 0:48:18.200 --> 0:48:19.479 know war that was the theme? 0:48:19.600 --> 0:48:20.640 You know war never ends? 0:48:21.160 --> 0:48:24.399 Was that a part of the decision to keep the 0:48:24.440 --> 0:48:28.560 main actors the same age and the flashbacks? Uh, you 0:48:28.600 --> 0:48:30.400 know what I mean? And the only one that was 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:32.360 young was was Chad you know Norman. 0:48:34.000 --> 0:48:39.200 It was thank you? Big question again, that's question I've 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:41.480 been asked a question a million times already now, so 0:48:42.200 --> 0:48:50.400 I have there. As I said earlier, everybody. Netflix was 0:48:50.440 --> 0:48:53.719 the last person who started to do the film. But 0:48:54.760 --> 0:48:58.680 they said we're doing it for a price, a price 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:05.239 that you a price. If I to add the dou 0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:08.960 to do the age that the d age actors would 0:49:09.080 --> 0:49:12.720 added another one hundred million dollars. 0:49:12.120 --> 0:49:12.640 To a film. 0:49:12.680 --> 0:49:15.560 Would have to do that one hundred down. That's more 0:49:15.600 --> 0:49:19.960 the whole film car. Another part of this answer and 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:24.399 complicated answer, is that we had very few days when 0:49:24.440 --> 0:49:29.399 the temperature was not over one hundred degrees. We were 0:49:29.440 --> 0:49:33.560 shooting in the jungles of Thailand, make up aesthetics would 0:49:33.560 --> 0:49:38.319 have melted writing for the right cameras. So with all 0:49:38.400 --> 0:49:44.040 those things I just said, combined with my confidence in 0:49:44.120 --> 0:49:49.640 the telligence of the moving the movie going audience that 0:49:49.760 --> 0:49:52.240 the first time they see it it will be jarn 0:49:52.840 --> 0:49:57.719 But then like that, the light bulb would go and 0:49:58.120 --> 0:49:59.960 you know, off over the head and like, I get it, 0:50:01.640 --> 0:50:04.640 this is a memory. So that is the answer to 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:07.360 your question. 0:50:07.480 --> 0:50:07.760 Yeah. 0:50:07.840 --> 0:50:11.880 Yeah, My good friend Sarah McDonald who writes for The Undefeated, 0:50:11.920 --> 0:50:14.400 and she gave the Five Bloods good review. She was 0:50:14.440 --> 0:50:17.360 the one that kind of made that point of just 0:50:17.440 --> 0:50:20.120 how that was the way even though it was you know, 0:50:20.120 --> 0:50:22.319 it may have been a budgetarystriction whatever, but that was 0:50:22.360 --> 0:50:24.759 just a way to show that they never left the war, 0:50:24.880 --> 0:50:25.919 like they're still there. 0:50:27.000 --> 0:50:31.759 Yes, And what did Marvin Gate sing? War is hell? 0:50:33.080 --> 0:50:33.600 But win it? 0:50:33.760 --> 0:50:37.400 And I'm not gonna sing it when we start getting 0:50:37.480 --> 0:50:38.720 back together again. 0:50:39.440 --> 0:50:40.880 So I know the questions coming. 0:50:40.719 --> 0:50:46.600 About Marvion Gate. Marvin Gay had an older brother named Franklin. 0:50:48.200 --> 0:50:52.880 He did three tours in Vietnam, three tours. He was 0:50:52.880 --> 0:50:57.200 a radio operator and he was right his brother every week, 0:50:58.160 --> 0:51:00.320 and Marvin never answered one of those others. 0:51:00.920 --> 0:51:01.200 Wow. 0:51:01.560 --> 0:51:04.000 And I think a lot of ways that album is 0:51:04.040 --> 0:51:09.040 an answer. It was a lettering never wrote. So Marvin 0:51:09.080 --> 0:51:11.080 is getting a first hand account from his brother who's 0:51:11.120 --> 0:51:15.080 doing three tours of Vietnam. Plus Marvin is in Detroit Motown, 0:51:15.239 --> 0:51:19.239 so they're seeing the buds come back, maimed, fucked up, 0:51:21.280 --> 0:51:25.160 strung on heroin. So all those things it might look, 0:51:25.200 --> 0:51:27.879 I might be wrong. I think those are the things 0:51:27.880 --> 0:51:32.680 that all came together that he gave the world the 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:35.160 gift of one of the greatest albums ever in my opinion. 0:51:35.760 --> 0:51:36.319 What's going on? 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:42.160 So Marvin is a character in this movie. 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:43.799 Did you know from the gate that you were going 0:51:43.880 --> 0:51:50.680 to use that album, that entire record as Yes, now 0:51:50.719 --> 0:51:53.960 I'm gonna do that because it introduces another, yet another 0:51:54.000 --> 0:51:59.200 generation to an album that's about to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. 0:51:59.320 --> 0:52:03.279 So and another thing is that we did. Another thing 0:52:03.280 --> 0:52:08.120 that we did is that my brother Sanki, who does 0:52:08.239 --> 0:52:12.160 all my still photography and not not still with Talk Records, 0:52:12.160 --> 0:52:18.360 he's behind the scenes. While we were in Thailand, he 0:52:18.520 --> 0:52:22.000 gave me that Acapella birds was I never heard it before? 0:52:22.520 --> 0:52:25.080 M hmm, I never. 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:29.440 Heard it, had never ever heard of acapella What's going on? 0:52:30.840 --> 0:52:34.239 And once I heard it, I knew we had to 0:52:34.280 --> 0:52:38.360 put it on a scene with Paul as he's on 0:52:38.520 --> 0:52:43.520 his dissent and the depths. 0:52:43.880 --> 0:52:47.320 You know, right, Yeah, I feel like that was your 0:52:47.400 --> 0:52:49.960 That was your living for the City moment from ju 0:52:50.239 --> 0:52:50.800 Jungle Fever. 0:52:51.960 --> 0:52:56.800 That was your Yeah, just using a song. 0:52:56.640 --> 0:52:58.120 Like go to the Tosh. 0:53:01.160 --> 0:53:03.279 Also do one of my favorite scenes where you did 0:53:03.320 --> 0:53:07.080 that is in Girl six, when you use how come 0:53:07.239 --> 0:53:08.080 you don't call me no more? 0:53:08.160 --> 0:53:12.200 Any boardwalk? 0:53:13.400 --> 0:53:15.520 In spite as a I'm gonna get on you with 0:53:15.560 --> 0:53:17.040 it again every time I talk to you, I'm gonna 0:53:17.040 --> 0:53:19.200 just say, as a c Au person, I found it 0:53:19.320 --> 0:53:22.719 very interesting the way you again go more House into. 0:53:22.520 --> 0:53:24.640 Another of yours. 0:53:24.719 --> 0:53:29.200 I just the house history. Though you were absolutely right, 0:53:29.840 --> 0:53:33.600 I do not mention clark Au now it's called back 0:53:33.640 --> 0:53:37.680 on Clark was called Clark College. My maid was that 0:53:37.880 --> 0:53:42.279 even like graduating from Morehouse ELECTUS class of nineteen seventy nine, 0:53:43.080 --> 0:53:48.920 my major, Herb. Eichelberger, taught me he's the one that 0:53:49.080 --> 0:53:51.600 believed in me as a young filmmaker. So I know 0:53:51.719 --> 0:53:56.680 you're absolutely distraught now that read Hastings just gave forty 0:53:56.680 --> 0:54:04.360 million to Morehouse, y'all fort forty million to the United 0:54:04.760 --> 0:54:10.920 College Fund, and clark Au didn't gonna die that the country. 0:54:10.960 --> 0:54:11.719 Was that you're doing. 0:54:13.760 --> 0:54:16.000 Hey, I thought about it like the rest of the world. 0:54:16.680 --> 0:54:19.320 Okay, okay, listen though. 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:23.239 You know why that's special to me, No bullshit. My 0:54:23.360 --> 0:54:27.640 father went to Morehouse. Well, my father was a freshman 0:54:28.200 --> 0:54:32.120 doctor Martin Luther King was a senior. Martin Luther King 0:54:32.160 --> 0:54:36.360 the Third and I are classmates. We both graduated class 0:54:36.400 --> 0:54:41.400 thirty nine. My grandfather went to Morehouse. My mother, who 0:54:41.480 --> 0:54:44.880 is a centophile, she's the one. She's the reason why 0:54:44.880 --> 0:54:48.680 I'm a filmmaker. She went to Spellman. My grandma lived 0:54:48.719 --> 0:54:52.839 one hundred years old. Wow, she went to Spellman. My 0:54:52.880 --> 0:54:58.080 grandmother is a one who's who saved the Social Security 0:54:58.160 --> 0:55:01.680 checks for fifty years for a grand josen for a 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:02.800 grandch education. 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:06.360 I was the first born, I had first DIBs. 0:55:06.680 --> 0:55:11.840 My grandmother put me through Morehouse, put me through n YU, 0:55:13.120 --> 0:55:15.719 and gave me the same money. But she's gotta have it. 0:55:16.239 --> 0:55:16.839 I get it. 0:55:16.880 --> 0:55:23.799 So that's why I show Love Morehouse and Spellman plus 0:55:24.280 --> 0:55:29.359 the world's grades Hurd. Love with Moses was one year 0:55:29.520 --> 0:55:31.759 ahead of me classes seventy eight. 0:55:33.120 --> 0:55:35.920 Nobody rides out of school like morehouse men and spellman women. 0:55:35.960 --> 0:55:40.560 I'm gonna tell I'm the motherfucking house what all right, 0:55:40.680 --> 0:55:46.440 one day I'll do it for OKAYK got to do it. 0:55:46.400 --> 0:55:53.959 A mirror my pros from me her culture festival. All right, y'all? 0:55:54.080 --> 0:55:56.600 No Bill None who used to teach at Clark and 0:55:56.680 --> 0:56:01.640 Land and where you go? I don't know the house 0:56:02.680 --> 0:56:05.839 And Samuel Jackson Sam, I. 0:56:05.760 --> 0:56:07.880 Think he was about. 0:56:10.400 --> 0:56:14.640 Sam, Sam, Sam and John I mean Sam then Bill 0:56:14.680 --> 0:56:16.040 were classmates some more Hawks. 0:56:16.840 --> 0:56:21.040 When you saw Sam presenting the award, you you kind 0:56:21.040 --> 0:56:22.240 of you already, right. 0:56:22.800 --> 0:56:24.880 I had an inkling, but I didn't want to go 0:56:25.000 --> 0:56:32.000 for the dope bean double cross again. I gotta love 0:56:32.040 --> 0:56:34.440 you so much. I don't want to go for that. 0:56:34.560 --> 0:56:37.799 I wanted going. I look, I was a hit. 0:56:37.880 --> 0:56:41.480 It was a hit. But I've seen that skull bluggery, 0:56:43.040 --> 0:56:46.200 that Agan's subterfuge before. 0:56:46.600 --> 0:56:53.640 Right, we all have. Man, I was I was there before. 0:56:55.080 --> 0:56:57.400 I was there, and that that was That was like 0:56:57.400 --> 0:56:59.360 one of the most electric moments in the audience. 0:56:59.400 --> 0:57:02.880 Man, like watching that and Ruth get one too, Like 0:57:02.920 --> 0:57:03.359 it was. 0:57:03.280 --> 0:57:07.080 Just oh, there was a bunch of us. Yeah, that 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:11.560 was a good knight for negroes all, not just the 0:57:11.560 --> 0:57:12.200 ones that want. 0:57:14.239 --> 0:57:16.880 Yes. Yeah, it was great. That was a great night. 0:57:21.720 --> 0:57:23.000 What is next for you? 0:57:23.400 --> 0:57:26.640 And how are you preparing for whatever is next for you? 0:57:27.400 --> 0:57:27.800 You know what? 0:57:28.480 --> 0:57:30.480 Another you guys give me nothing A great question. 0:57:30.600 --> 0:57:32.920 I thank you for because it's hard to answer the 0:57:33.040 --> 0:57:39.560 questions that you're like, WTF. OMG. This is the first time. 0:57:40.760 --> 0:57:43.000 If I just had as my mother, my late mother 0:57:43.040 --> 0:57:49.200 will say, sit your skinny, rusty black ass down. I've 0:57:49.240 --> 0:57:51.680 been working non stop. 0:57:52.640 --> 0:57:53.160 She used to have. 0:57:53.280 --> 0:57:56.800 It was eighty six, do the right thing. 0:57:56.880 --> 0:58:01.240 It's gonna be thirty one years old this coming June thirty. 0:58:01.360 --> 0:58:03.320 The film was released the same day as Tim Baton. 0:58:03.520 --> 0:58:11.800 Tim Burton's Batman was between feature films, featured documentaries, short 0:58:11.880 --> 0:58:20.560 films for Michael Jackson, Prince Public Enemy, Miles Davis, Anita Baker. 0:58:20.680 --> 0:58:24.360 You know, a whole bunch of people, and then being 0:58:24.400 --> 0:58:29.120 married twenty six years, my group of wife Tanya, two kids, 0:58:29.680 --> 0:58:35.440 grown kids, this pandemic both and you know there's two. 0:58:35.280 --> 0:58:37.920 Of them, alright me. 0:58:38.760 --> 0:58:44.240 Yeah, Like, sit the fuck down and be still. 0:58:45.000 --> 0:58:47.480 Stop the ripping and running here and ripping running air 0:58:48.440 --> 0:58:53.720 My family, we were. You know, I just went out 0:58:54.160 --> 0:58:56.200 the first two months just to take. 0:58:56.040 --> 0:58:56.800 Out the garbage. 0:58:57.440 --> 0:59:00.800 Wow. Sometimes you just using up. 0:59:01.240 --> 0:59:03.320 Now it's loosen up, you know, ride my bike, spending 0:59:03.320 --> 0:59:06.000 a lot of dollar demonstrations. But I had to be 0:59:06.040 --> 0:59:11.280 still because I want. I wanted to live and I 0:59:11.280 --> 0:59:14.000 don't want to do nothing that's gonna, you know, put 0:59:14.040 --> 0:59:18.840 my family in jeopardy. And when you're just there, you 0:59:19.000 --> 0:59:25.480 think your mind and maybe maybe everybody, some other beautiful 0:59:25.480 --> 0:59:28.440 people might have felt this way too. My mind was 0:59:28.480 --> 0:59:29.960 not racing, and. 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:33.240 It was like I'm taking this one motherfucking day and 0:59:33.320 --> 0:59:38.320 a motherfucking at time, one day at a time, not 0:59:38.360 --> 0:59:39.480 trying to plan on us. 0:59:39.880 --> 0:59:41.800 We don't know when it's just going to change whatever. 0:59:42.440 --> 0:59:46.160 I'm just gonna be still. And I've done a lot 0:59:46.160 --> 0:59:49.480 of reflections. I thought about my brother Chris, who died 0:59:49.640 --> 0:59:51.560 not recently, but you know he was a brother right 0:59:51.640 --> 0:59:53.600 under me. You know, he had an addiction. 0:59:54.960 --> 0:59:57.200 I thought of my mother, who died of liver cancer. 0:59:57.840 --> 1:00:00.960 You saw a crook one I'm wanted. She was forty 1:00:00.960 --> 1:00:05.120 one years old, you know, another sophomore in more house. 1:00:06.520 --> 1:00:09.080 So I've had time to think about It's not just 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:12.040 all you know, dark stuff. But I've had a lot 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:17.600 of time to reflect the good and bad, which I 1:00:17.640 --> 1:00:22.360 think has been very beneficial to my growth because I 1:00:22.480 --> 1:00:27.720 just had to shit the fuck down. Hey man, I'm 1:00:27.760 --> 1:00:29.400 trying to be like, you know, like mister. 1:00:29.640 --> 1:00:32.480 No, that's real. No, that's really, that's real. 1:00:33.400 --> 1:00:35.480 Even when at the beginning when you were saying, you know, 1:00:35.640 --> 1:00:37.840 like I'm sixty three years old, like me and my 1:00:37.880 --> 1:00:41.000 wife were even talking about that about how you've always 1:00:41.080 --> 1:00:44.920 been someone who he your output has always been very prolific, 1:00:44.960 --> 1:00:47.240 and so you've always like every year or at least 1:00:47.240 --> 1:00:49.600 every other year, we know, Spike got something coming. And 1:00:49.640 --> 1:00:53.040 then on top of that, your subject matter is always 1:00:53.080 --> 1:00:56.920 timely to what's going on. So it's easy to forget 1:00:56.960 --> 1:00:59.880 because you're always so current. Like you said, he's beginning, 1:00:59.920 --> 1:01:02.480 like yo, this cap been doing this shit for forty years. 1:01:02.640 --> 1:01:03.160 You know what I mean? 1:01:03.640 --> 1:01:06.240 People, we want to freeze just like it all right, 1:01:07.720 --> 1:01:09.520 But if I could just say this, and this is 1:01:09.720 --> 1:01:11.720 because I gotta go, but I want to thank you guys. 1:01:11.760 --> 1:01:15.520 But but also another thing I left out I've been 1:01:15.520 --> 1:01:17.280 thinking about. I was, you know, the first time ever 1:01:17.280 --> 1:01:21.560 I'm thinking about my own mortality. Death has been around 1:01:21.640 --> 1:01:29.440 us around me, people have died left and right, and 1:01:29.440 --> 1:01:31.960 it really you know, maybe think about you know, like 1:01:32.080 --> 1:01:36.680 I'm not going to be the fuck here forever, you know. 1:01:38.000 --> 1:01:42.480 And I know it's a cliche, but you know what 1:01:42.560 --> 1:01:46.400 makes a cliche that war times than not, it is 1:01:46.480 --> 1:01:46.920 the truth. 1:01:47.640 --> 1:01:50.240 Bullshit doesn't become a cliche. 1:01:50.920 --> 1:01:53.280 Truth does, in my opinion. 1:01:54.480 --> 1:01:57.800 In fact, we got to enjoy what we got because 1:01:59.160 --> 1:02:03.520 no one knows when that last breath is we're gonna take, 1:02:04.560 --> 1:02:06.720 and nothing is reaffirmed that. 1:02:06.800 --> 1:02:08.640 I mean, you hear that, you hear that, hear that 1:02:08.640 --> 1:02:11.240 he has some bulls that will live ever. But living 1:02:11.320 --> 1:02:17.160 through New York City in this epicenter that changed is 1:02:17.240 --> 1:02:20.680 like I said, nah, that shit is real. 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:23.360 You gotta we. 1:02:23.360 --> 1:02:27.960 Gotta enjoy this ship while you're here, because this was 1:02:28.000 --> 1:02:30.600 a motherfucking epicenter New York City. 1:02:31.320 --> 1:02:33.000 People dying left and right. 1:02:33.680 --> 1:02:38.120 Funeral homes have motherfucking U haul trucks. 1:02:38.240 --> 1:02:44.880 They're unrefrigerated. People have to call the cops because valley 1:02:45.000 --> 1:02:51.160 fueled fluid and just a stinch is like, just be crazy. 1:02:51.600 --> 1:02:55.200 That's like living Fort Green not right next to Brooklyn Hospital. 1:02:56.400 --> 1:03:00.680 And you see the refrigeration trucks they had they're gone now, yeah, 1:03:00.800 --> 1:03:04.840 but that they had to bring in refrigeration trucks to 1:03:05.000 --> 1:03:08.200 keep the course of the the dead bodies. 1:03:09.200 --> 1:03:09.800 You're on ice. 1:03:10.680 --> 1:03:11.080 Yeah. 1:03:12.160 --> 1:03:14.800 And the last thing, my brother, I'm gonna sing you 1:03:14.840 --> 1:03:16.960 out because I want to let you know that I love. 1:03:16.800 --> 1:03:18.720 You and it's love, love, love. 1:03:19.240 --> 1:03:23.520 And I think that this is time history that we're 1:03:23.520 --> 1:03:29.720 living through is going to reduce great albums, great plays, 1:03:30.720 --> 1:03:35.360 great movies, great documentaries, great art is going to come 1:03:35.360 --> 1:03:40.040 out of this historic moment we're living in. I believe 1:03:40.080 --> 1:03:44.720 in my heart, amen, that they're great, that they that 1:03:44.800 --> 1:03:49.280 for me, what makes artists great is a God given 1:03:49.400 --> 1:03:54.160 gift and that god even gift is is the connection 1:03:54.280 --> 1:03:58.520 between the heart and the mind. And you watch just 1:03:58.720 --> 1:03:59.160 me cold. 1:03:59.280 --> 1:04:02.640 Because the the the. 1:04:03.160 --> 1:04:06.440 Horrible things have happened, art, great art is going to 1:04:06.480 --> 1:04:07.760 comment on this period we lived. 1:04:08.800 --> 1:04:12.000 Thank you, amen, Thank you very much, Spike Lee. 1:04:12.400 --> 1:04:13.560 Thank you. 1:04:13.800 --> 1:04:14.480 I appreciate it. 1:04:14.560 --> 1:04:16.160 Thank you for your art. 1:04:16.400 --> 1:04:21.320 Not a special Q slive with Spike Lee Bontelo. Fight Yeah, Steve, 1:04:22.800 --> 1:04:23.560 that was a mouthful. 1:04:23.680 --> 1:04:24.240 We got it. 1:04:31.360 --> 1:04:36.600 What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For 1:04:36.680 --> 1:04:39.800 more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app. 1:04:40.000 --> 1:04:43.080 Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.