America Behind the Color Line (33 page)

As the fabric of our society changes in certain ways, the fabric of the cinematic world changes in the same ways. For a very long time, the people that were in power were white men. They tended to hire other white men, and when they saw a story, the people in those stories were white men or specific kinds of white women. As we get younger producers and younger people in the studios, we have a generation, or several generations, of people who have lived in a society where they have black friends. They have Asian friends. They have Hispanic friends who do a wide variety of jobs, who went into a wide variety of vocations. When the studio heads look at a script now, they can see their friend Juan or they can see their friend Kwong or they can see their friend Rashan. So all of a sudden you see a different look in the movies, as they reflect the way this younger generation of producers and studio executives live their lives. And consequently, through the worldwide network of cinema, you meet other top-quality actors from other cultures. Like Chow Yun-Fat. I really admire his work. We communicate all the time through notes, or he’ll send me a poster, I’ll send him a poster; he’ll send me a book, I’ll send him something. He’s the biggest star in Asia. And Jackie Chan. Through that whole evolution, Jackie Chan’s become what he’s become. And there’s Stellen Skarsgard, a huge actor in Sweden; he’s come over here to work. The world of cinema brings us all together. And we’ve started to cast films in a whole other way that reflects the way we live and the pattern of our society. Outside of
Spider-Man,
all the big action heroes now seem to be ethnic. The new Arnold Schwarzenegger is The Rock, and the new Bruce Willis is about to be Vin Diesel. So we’re doing something right. But it’s difficult to do a film that’s of a serious nature and that does not have guns, sex, and explosions in it if it’s ethnic.

There are many ways to answer the question whether Hollywood is racist. The direct and honest answer, I guess, is yes, only because Hollywood is anti anything that’s not green. If something doesn’t make money, they don’t want to be bothered with it. Therefore, it’s still difficult to get a movie about Hispanics made; it’s difficult to get a movie about blacks made that doesn’t have to do with hip-hop, drugs, and sex. You can get a black comedy made. Eddie Murphy’s funny, Will Smith is funny, Martin Lawrence is funny. We have huge black comics. But getting a film like
Eve’s Bayou
made is practically impossible. For five years, nobody knew what that movie was. Like, what is it? It’s a family drama. Yeah, but how do we market that? Nobody wanted to be bothered with it. Or
Caveman’s Valentine
. What is it? It’s a mystery, a murder mystery. But it’s a black murder mystery. No, there’s white people in it; it just happens that a black person is the lead. So Hollywood is racist in its ideas about what can make money and what won’t make money. They’ll make Asian movies about people who jump across buildings and use swords and swing in trees, like
Crouching Tiger,
but we can’t sell an Asian family drama. What do we do with that? Or if we’re going to have Asian people in the film, they’ve got to be like the tong, or they’re selling drugs and they got some guns and it’s young gang members. It’s got to be that. And Hollywood is sexist in its ideals about which women are appealing and which women aren’t. It’s a young woman’s game. Women have got to be either real old or real young to be successful. If they’re in the middle, it’s like, what do we do with her? Put her in kids’ movies, you know, with some kids.

Hollywood can be perceived as racist and sexist, because that’s what audiences have said to them they will pay their money to come see. It’s difficult to break that cycle, because it’s a moneymaking business and it costs money to make films. Hollywood tends to copy things that make lots of money. The first thing they want to know is how many car chases are there and what’s blowing up. They’re over the how-many-people-die thing, because of 9/11. Now it’s like, how many people can we kill and get away with it? We can’t blow up anything right now unless it’s in the right context. We can blow something up over there, and the bad guy can be a guy with a turban. So there’s all kinds of things that go into what people say about Hollywood being racist. There have been times I had to go in a room and convince people I’m the right person for their script and the fact that I’m black will not impact on the script in a negative way. I’ve had to explain that my being black won’t change the dynamics of the interaction; it won’t change the dynamics of the story in terms of my character’s interaction with the other characters. I’ll just happen to be a black guy who’s in that story doing those things.

I used to think that a person of my skill level should be paid more money to do what I do because there are other people who make more money for doing what they do who aren’t as good. But they still bring more people into the theater, for whatever reason. I don’t profess to know the reason, but I do understand the business a lot better now. When somebody’s got a specific amount of box office clout, okay, they get $20 million for the part because they’re going to open big and the movie’s going to make $100 million. All A-list stars are not created equal. If I show up in a place, okay, I’ll get treated a specific kind of way, and that’s very cool. But if Eddie Murphy comes in the door behind me, he’s gonna get treated a little better. If Tom Hanks comes in the door behind him, he’s gonna get treated a little better, and if Will Smith comes in the door behind him, he’s gonna get treated a little better. And then if Tom Cruise comes in, then everybody, fuck, gets kind of pushed to the side. So it works out. This is not the kind of job where you work your way up from the mail room and you may become president. There’s a pecking order. But it’s tied to the box office. It’s not tied to anything else.

There’s this whole theory about Denzel and Halle and Sidney all receiving awards from the Academy in 2002; it’s like, usher out the old and usher in the new. Fortunately, Denzel did a role that was so different from anything he’d ever done, and he did it so well, that he won an Academy Award for it. It was the best and most compelling performance of the year. I have four criteria for the Academy Award. First, the role is totally different from anything you’ve seen this actor do before. Second, the character is compelling and interesting, frightening even; you talk about the character when you leave the theater. Third, the character is an integral part of the story; the story would not work if this character were not in it. And fourth, you know that the actor poured their heart and soul into it. Denzel did all those things, and that was the best performance of the year. Out of all the women who were nominated, Halle’s performance was a good performance for her. It was something the audience had never seen her do before, and it was compelling and kind of awesome, even shocking in terms of the intensity of what happened on the screen.

So they were well-deserved awards. But there have been years when other African Americans won Academy Awards. Just because Denzel’s and Halle’s were the two most high profile awards, the year 2002 was viewed as a water-shed when it really wasn’t. It’s what it should be. I look forward to the year when somebody’s going, well, where are the white nominees? The year that all the performances that are nominated are ones by African Americans or Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans. And that can happen. There have been years where we won for sound and for best documentary, best short; we won for all kinds of things, but people don’t recognize those individuals. I know brothers that have two and three Oscars at home, soundmen, and people don’t even know who they are. Getting an Academy Award is important no matter what category you win it in. It’s an event. It means something. It means you’re going to make more money, for sure.

It also means more black people are gonna get Academy Awards sooner or later, because these guys did it. They have other people behind them that are their protégés. There were young girls sitting at home in Polk City, Iowa, somewhere, looking at Halle Berry, and they ran into the bathroom and picked up their toothbrush and made their Academy Award acceptance speech. I used to do it every year. I used to stand in front of the mirror and thank my mom and my teachers and everybody I knew, and it was great. That’s something to aspire to. The first time my wife and I went to the Academy Awards, we were calling people in Atlanta, people in New York, everybody we had acted with, and telling them, we’re in a limo on our way to the Academy Awards. Make sure you’re watching the red carpet! Check it out! Now it’s like, do we have to go? Oh, man, get dressed at two o’clock, get in the car, you know,
argghh.
But you still want to do it because it’s a celebration of what we do, and it’s important that young ethnic actors sitting at home see us there, whether we win, whether we present, or whether we’re just in the audience. Because they know we’re an important part of this business; we are recognized as part of it. That’s why we’re there. Because not everybody can go.

Will Smith and Halle Berry, in a romantic comedy, $100 million—that might happen in our lifetime. Or Denzel. I think Will and Halle would be an event. People would go see that, even Martin Lawrence and Halle Berry, Chris Tucker and Halle, we’re talking about event guys now, $20-million players. Eddie, Will, Chris, Martin, event players, with Halle, yeah, that might happen.
Down to Earth,
Chris Rock’s 2001 remake of
Heaven Can Wait,
didn’t work too well, but there’s a romantic comedy out there somewhere. People are starting to remake everything now. I’m sure there could be some interesting ethnic remakes of some of the films we knew and loved from yesteryear that they’re starting to bring back out again. I don’t think there’s anything inherent in the audience that would keep them from identifying with two characters who are falling in love, both of whom are black. In a lot of people’s minds, Halle is just a beautiful girl who happens to be black, and Will is an incredibly funny and handsome, intriguing guy. He’s kind of like Jim Carey. People want to see Will be funny and charming and all the things they fell in love with in Will as the Fresh Prince. They don’t want to see Will bloodied and bulked up and being Ali.

People know who they want to see. They know what Will Smith they want to see, they know what Harrison Ford they want to see, they know what Eddie Murphy they want to see, they know what Tom Cruise they want to see, they know what Tom Hanks they want to see. With me, part of the game when people come to my movies is seeing how different I’m going to be. But those guys have made a reputation on being a specific thing that audiences bought into. It’s like, hey, I bought into this. I didn’t ask you to change your hair, change your face, do nothing. That other guy, I pay to see him do that, ’cause he’s always doing that to himself, so we’re used to it. But when we come to see Will, we want to see Will Smith’s face. I don’t want to see scars on it. I don’t want to see a different kind of hair. I want to see him being jolly. I want him talking like Will Smith. We want him being that guy we know and love. That’s just a fact.

I don’t know if we should present our stories differently. I think there are enough skilled writers and enough skilled directors and definitely enough skilled actors that we could effectively tell whatever story we want to tell. It all goes back to who’s willing to put up the money so that these stories can be told effectively. I go back to
Eve’s Bayou.
We had one budget for it and everybody kept telling us it had to be done at another budget. But people bought into our belief in it, so they did things for less money or as a labor of love. The local people in New Orleans showed up. We didn’t have enough people to fix hair period-style, so we called hairdressers in New Orleans and it was like, well, child, we’d love to come help you. It became a big collaborative effort. You’ve got to be able to do that and be willing to sacrifice in certain ways to get things done, because nobody’s going to give you what you think you deserve to get them done. The people doing it have to believe in what you are doing. You start working too hard, and you run your crew down working overtime. They got to believe as hard as you believe so you can get an independent film done. That’s the only way independent films get done.

I’ve been on studio pictures that should have ended in December and didn’t end till March and nobody said a word. But you could never do that on an independent film, because when the money runs out, the money’s out. We were begging them for one more day on
Eve’s Bayou
and they were like, we just can’t do it; we just can’t. Just a day, one day so we can—no, we don’t have it. And the movie did fine. I was just a little country doctor doing his thing. A little country doctor like we all know. The movie is still doing well in the world. In fact, I just got a check for the worldwide sales. There were places that movie never opened. People in London kept waiting for it and waiting for it, and we finally got over there with it. People in Germany were hearing about it, and hearing about it, and they never got it. Now it’s kind of moving into video over there, so they’re getting it. But it did relatively well for the amount of money it was made for. It made the studio’s money back, and people are now sharing in the profits. We all had to say, we’ve got to wait. This is five, six years later and we’re just getting into the money, but some money’s coming.

The reason our people didn’t go to see
Beloved
is because it was bad. It’s a hard book to read, although Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer for it. And then your friends tell you, wait a minute, child, don’t go and see that. This is black people saying, I can’t wait to see
Beloved,
and somebody who’s already seen it goes, well, you know, you might want to wait on the video. And then they’ll call you later: child, you were right about that
Beloved
. I’m sorry, it was just not an event. We wanted it to be something. I was at the premiere, and it’s difficult to know what to say to the people who were in it. It’s one of those things.

One more NAACP boycott doesn’t seem like the answer to me. In fact, why don’t the NAACP leave all of us alone? Every time they get involved in Hollywood, something strange happens. When they were protesting
The Color Purple,
it was like, what the hell is Steven Spielberg doing directing
The Color Purple
? All right, and then everybody was like, well, he paid for it, so he can direct it. Then all of a sudden it was like, well, why didn’t nobody from
The Color Purple
win an Academy Award? Well, number one, you said Steven Spielberg shouldn’t even have been messing with it, so why you talking about that now? Why weren’t there any black people nominated for Academy Awards for
The Color Purple
? Well, let me see, we had
Booty Call
in 1996; who you want nominated for
Booty Call
? Which actor? Who you want? It’s, get over it, leave us alone, let us do our thing.