MAHERSHALA ALI | In Conversation With... | TIFF 2018

hi everyone good evening and welcome to the Glenn Gould studio I'm tree to skin to feel the senior director of learning at tips year round two Bell Lightbox programming and the programmer for the Inc conversation with series during the festival it is my huge honor to welcome you to tonight's in conversation with Maher Sheela Ali it warms my heart to see such a full crowd for what we know is going to be a really special evening so thank you for supporting us and for joining us tonight to begin we'd like to acknowledge the tonight's event taking place on the tree territory of the Mississauga's of new credit and the traditional territory of the Hoda nashoni the Anishinaabe and the qur'an when dad we are grateful to have opportunity to work in the community tonight it's the first event of this year's in conversation with series at the festival tomorrow tour night our guests will be the two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank and Wednesday night Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe winner Maggie Gyllenhaal will join us for an on-stage conversation for more information join us at tiff net tonight's event is presented by the Directors Guild of Canada at this time I'd like to introduce bill Skolnick executive director and CEO of DGC Ontario to say a few words on behalf of the Directors Guild of Canada so please join us in welcoming good evening everybody first of all for those of you were celebrating Shanah Tovah I hope we have some folks here will enjoy this and have a sweet new year I'm always struck by the ten Gould studio and having events here for TIFF because Glenn Gould was one of our true international artists and he was a visionary and he believed very strongly that live performance was going to be transcended by electronic recording of the Arts and that's what TIFF does Tiff's rates the audio the audio visual depiction of art well there's another connection to the Glenn Gould studio and that's that this movie the green book with Maher saleh ali celebrates Don Shurley who's a major character in the film and the book is based to a great deal to a great extent on on him and he was a virtuoso pianist like Glenn Gould but he was a very rare musical animal because he was a classical player who could swing it like like Andre Previn Claude bowling went to Marsalis and in fact I think it's going to be in the film but I urge all of you to hear his performance his rendition of waterboy if you want to really know what type of player he was like Don Shurley Maharaj Ali has a special gift he has a rare ability he takes you into a story and you forget that you've ever seen him in any other work as any other character this to me is the highest accolade you can give an actor he has the duality in his performance as well he sweeps the audience into empathy for his character and at the same time he's displayed an uncanny ability to empathize with the characters surround him so it gives me great pleasure to ask Teresa to come back and to bring on Thank You Val so we're in for a treat tonight's conversation will be moderated by Amanda Paris by day Amanda writes a weekly column for CBC arts host three CBC television series CBC arts exhibitionist the filmmakers and from the vaults and it's radio host of Marvin's Room on CBC music by night she writes stories for the stage and screen over the course of her career amanda has worked as an educator a researcher an actor and a community organizer she's a playwright and the co-founder of the award-winning alternative education organization lost lyrics please give it up for Amanda Paris [Applause] hi everyone I am so excited to be here tonight who else is excited without further ado let me introduce the guest of the hour Mahalo Ali starred in Barry Jenkins Academy Award Best Picture Drama moonlight for which he received the 2017 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor [Applause] he also starred in the highly acclaimed feature hidden figures directed by Ted Melfi but is perhaps best known for playing Remy Denton on the award-winning Netflix series house of cards for which he received a 2016 Emmy nomination prior to his recent critical success he also starred in Gary Ross's the Free State of Jones opposite Matthew McConaughey the final installment of the Hunger Games franchise playing Boggs in Mockingjay part 1 and part 2 and the Marvel Netflix series Luke Cage as cottonmouth his other film credits include Derek SIEM Frances The Place Beyond The Pines opposite Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper and David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight we are so thrilled to welcome Hirsch LA I leave the stage for conversation about his career the third season of HBO's critically acclaimed true detective series and green book his film plane in the gala section of the festival which you need to go and see please join me in welcoming at my her Chalapathi [Applause] thank you so much for joining us here in Toronto we apologize for the weather glasses people came out thought Ryan Gosling was coming or something so I want to start off by reading something to you and you tell me what comes to your mind when I read it I apologize in advance because I might get some words wrong okay all right realizations I know you've been waiting craving patience is the key to blessings lessons general information I sketch where the West was won I'm feeling fresh under this Vancouver Sun galactic traveler rays of and I wasn't sure what the word was there hitchhike to paradise Kingdom Come oh wow I wrote that in Vancouver this is a song that's like 12 years old oh man how much diggin did you do you had a life as a rapper I did I actually um so right out of undergrad I got a job at the Gavin it was a music industry magazine I recorded spins so I'm all a radio station and I would say how many times did you play Erykah Badu's on and off and they would say seventy three times this week and so I was doing that and I had been recording music for years and that's where I got this indie deal while I was working at this this magazine and the night of my second show just got my my single pressed up well we we pressed up vinyl back then it was like a hip hop so I literally had my audition for NYU for the grad program the next day and I think it was like February like 15th or something and so I just got this deal we just printed up this single and the next day I audition for grad school and I ended up getting in so I had to call the label guy and said look I'm going to school so yeah I put it down for a long time okay okay so we're gonna go back to it but let's go a little further back yeah so when you were younger you wrote poetry and you wrote monologues was this something at that time as a teenager writing was this something that you would share with the world was this something that you kept intimate leads for yourself it was something that I shared with people that I trusted and I felt like would sort of get it like understand you know it wasn't something I shared with a lot of people my father was ill and it's something that I did to sort of cope with that I had insomnia really bad leaving high school and I would just be up all night into the next day and so I started writing a lot and I'm both this little book and but together I had trained on with the Kinkos and I'm made of cover and all the stuff and I started performing my poetry and so my dad was my dad was a musical theater actor and did Dreamgirls and five guys name all these shows like back in the 80s and so we were never like connected in terms of like the arts per se but I respected what he saw and the films that he exposed and shared with me I had so much respect for his taste and his talent but we would never felt totally connected because I was really an athlete I went to school on a basketball scholarship so it wasn't until that wasn't going particularly well my time as an athlete in school and I had this collection of poetry and I would go and visit him and I was sort of performing for him not knowing I was doing like monologues and he was so into it and dug it and his friends would be over and I would do it for them you know kids are always looking for that like positive feedback like where do you get your cues so that you know a direction of going and I was like I think compared to my friends is not at all a compliment to myself but I was hyper conscious about the future and trying to find what it was that I was supposed to be doing cuz I had like a gut feeling that I was supposed to be doing something where did that come from probably from him and to some degree my dad and one soul trained in 1977 so he's they used to have like a national dance contest and so he was on I remember is one of my early memories of seeing him on TV in his apartment in this in San Francisco and I remember looking up and he was dancing on TV so it was just I remember he won this car and I remember he won $2,500 and I found this letter from Johnson & Johnson recently about the the prize or whatever I found it like four years ago but um so because he ended up leaving when I was three and moving to New York and I know he was like an Amsterdam I'm in Japan and like sending me postcards and I wish there was FaceTime back then it was extraordinary but because he pursued his dream he passed really young I'm six years older than my dad when he passed but he passed really young that I felt I felt this pressure associated with time and sort of becoming and like living your life to the fullest and so where I grew up in Hayward California borders Oakland essentially the thing about growing up in the Bay Area it's it's a dangerous place in a sense because there's enough and I don't mean that physically I don't mean walking down the street and someone's gonna shoot you but I mean there's enough there where I think it takes an extra degree of courage to do something to get yourself out even if you come back to go have other experiences somewhere I think there's enough there to keep you there and I knew because I'd spent time in New York and I traveled with him I'd come eighty-six I came Canada he was doing Dreamgirls here and I had all these experiences like sort of traveling with him in these bits I've seen some that I felt I felt that I felt not always healthy but I felt a healthy pressure to figure it out before like I was stuck it'd be different if I came back I loved the Bay Area that will always be home but I knew I had to get out to see if see what it was that I had - that needed to come out yeah can you talk a little bit more about those summers that you spent with your father and the things that he exposed you to and what that inspired in you creatively mm-hmm well he exposed me to I remember some of my early independent films that I saw or like the player and shortcuts oh gosh I saw one false move Billy Bob Thornton it's like first film I just remember being exposed to like seeing Spike Lee movies in the late eighties early nineties in the theater going to see George Woolf plays like I'm from Hayward you know so you're gonna New York and you're going to Broadway and you're going backstage and you're seeing like Jeffrey Wright on stage like for your first play you know do angels in angels in America and Savion Glover and I'm meeting these people so he was constantly exposing me she's taking me to museums every time I travel to see him and one of my favorite stories about my dad I was it was 93 a year before he passed and so I'm in my sophomore year of college and he goes I'm not really getting you any school closes shoe okay and I was excited because you know my dad had the best taste he was like fly and I wasn't you know so he's always gonna take me to get you know nice and full of life so quote ya never seen this buddy it's like you know my dad got it is an ego you know I'm not gonna get you a bunch of school clothes this year and he goes but I'm gonna get you one thing I was like huh okay and he goes I'm gonna take you to Barneys I don't know anything about Barneys so he he goes i'ma let you pick out one thing like okay so he takes me to Barney's and I pick out this like beautiful sweater it was kind of oversized and later on my god he was almost giving me this lesson in quality over quantity and I have that sweater to this day and that was 1993 and believe me I take care of that thing but um but that's essentially who he was my life I didn't get enough time with him I just didn't have a lot of time with him but I got enough time with him and most most of the times you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody who will say a parent did more for me by leaving than staying but I truly believe that I got so much more out of my father leaving home when I was three years old and the lessons I learned from him in his pursuit of-of a fulfillment that he couldn't necessary find at home like he felt like he had a calling being around and being around his friends and it felt like he was called to something that we still had a relationship and he was still still go to New York and I'm putting my hands on the rails going down to the subway and I hear him telling me to take my hand the rail or don't bite your fingernails like all these like these I never gave me I was 13 and he got this Jackie gave me this like kind of sweet Jackie it was beautiful and I remember thinking to put my hand in the pocket and I put my hand in the pocket I don't kid you not it was like a directed I can put the jacket on I remembered it I thought check the pocket check the pocket no conversation nothing said after that but I put my hand in the pocket and there was a condom you know that was the birds so there you go okay so let's talk about your journey as an artist I read that your love of vaccine began in the theater specifically and the theater is this very magical place where you know belief is suspended the audience comes in and if you tell them this table is now a car it's a car yeah can you tell me about what the theater provided to you as a young person exploring this creative outlet for the first time mmm love of characters and a real appreciation for great right so in school I went to grad it and why you and it was extraordinary program everybody was better than me and I was an athlete making a transition into acting and the interesting thing about that was when I was in undergrad I was sort of a kid with an artist heart but that was on the basketball team so I was always kind of this hybrid but what I found just being around those extraordinary professors and teachers and really talented people was this emphasis on transformation being the bar being like the barometer and the effort was always for me so I never got to play anybody black in grad school like it one time at the end of my third year I got to play I did a perk leash play called boots for an Alabama sky and I can't tell you how liberating that was in a certain way that just to have experienced a writing that I didn't have to do this extra set of transforming so that the audience is as that ease and believes me you know and so cuz that's the thing with these conservatory programs that they're usually not getting to there's not enough 18 students three or four might be of color you know if yeah you know and so and that's what it is you're you just don't Shakespeare and Sam Sheppard and you know you know Eugene Miller or Arthur Miller and you know all the people you know and it's all about transformation you know and so for me I think because these characters weren't like me they weren't of my world that there was this effort to sort of be malleable for that story and so I've taken that with me there's been times when I've had a little bit more time to do that work to build a character but I really came up in television so I found that I had to make decisions really quickly character choices very quickly and I think my time in school and my time in the theatre really really served me so let's talk about that as soon as you graduated from school you automatically like immediately went into into television and film yes this career what was that transition like for you it was it was it was a place where I think my meticulous nature could kind of find and what I mean by that is that when you do the same thing 12 times and one set up and they move the camera and you might do it five one way and then three yet another I've always enjoyed building in that time and coming up with sort of curating the physicality of a performance when I'm putting down a glass when I'm touching my tie it's it's almost like doing two forms of work at once so the physical the physical work but also whatever emotional energetic journey that I'm on as well and so I think because I think some people get bored by how many times you have to how many setups there are how many times you have shoot and one set up to do a scene that is something for me that I always felt like I loved working with David Fincher you know a lot of that he just does a lot of takes okay and then like within that time I'm just having a blast because I'm just trying to like improve on the shot and so I asked her I understood I think I fairly quickly understood the medium because in theatre they would always have to push me to be larger to get to the back of the room not I'm in some ways I mean I'm a little more contained I like subtlety like what I I do pride myself on in my work is how to do something I'm always trying to do less and because the camera picks it up and so what I found in film and television that I love is the space for me to do to do less and in my own ways I will fight but I will kind of fight a director when they want me to be bigger because I can tell my own barometer will go off and I'll know that that's too much or that it's unnecessary and I would rather tell the story in a way that is subtle more subtle because I believe the audience is more is more intelligent than when we give them credit for and they pick up on those things so we don't have to always like beat them over the head with the writing or or with gesture or emotional work per se that there's there's more space for subtlety there and that's my own dialect I work at least if I look at my work that I always I'm what the hiccups that I see is when I could have been more subtle you've talked a lot about not a lot but I've seen in a few interviews about the fact that a lot of your early roles felt like you were the diversity hire can you talk a little bit about what it was like to work with that realization [Music] I think I was angry for a long time you know um and I try not to be but I think I think I was really frustrated for many years just because I just I think we all whatever it is that you do whatever your passion is like I'm very passionate about my work and I'm very much a perfectionist so I always have to I personally have to let it go you know I could have to be okay with it you know and I think sort of navigating this industry in my time in it I'm sincerely grateful for every experience I've had from my first job where I was fired eventually after 19 so it's in part because I was like why am I not being written for but my name is forth you know but I have two lines in this episode or what-have-you and honestly I'm my toughest critic I know I wasn't doing bad work it just it wasn't a fit for them and I felt like I was a I was the black guy on the show and what what I appreciated respect about that time and I think I'll try to get back to making a real point but what I appreciate about that time is the last few years have been a lot about a lot of diversity conversation and I'm really happy to see what the test of Thompson's and the Michael B Jordans and what trivanti a-roads is getting to do and Donald Glover and this like 2012 on 2014 generation is stepping into I wasn't that generation you know I started working professional in 2000 and that was the in double-a-c-p era of getting these policies paths are putting pressure on networks to hire not just actors but people of color and the writers and directors and so actors are really getting cast because they have to write in that period and what's important about that is eventually you see enough people they're present enough where it's I think it's created an opening for people to take it further keep the pressure on where people can begin to be seen as equals in terms of their talent or people who were equally deserving and I we're not there yet but there's there's been progress I've seen it and and have experienced it but but so during that time and even up till you know more recently it had been it been really frustrating because you know she feel like you're as a as a talent as a creative you feel like you're holding in a sneeze for decades yeah and here it is 44 and I've been working always had been a principal on essentially basically every show I've been on meaning principal you know cast member you know I was was never like and God bless anyone who is but I was never like a day player or if I was guest starring it was nine times out of ten the featured guest star or whatever so I was always present but here it is I had to win Oscar to get a leading part you know and I had never had that opportunity before until after that which is true detective is my first actually so that's been my experience and then in hindsight people go oh he's good I mean you mentioned a lot of the black creatives today that are doing incredible things but they're also a lot of them are creating their own work was not something you ever thought about doing is creating the roles that you wanted to be in yeah I did I did think about it but even in that that wasn't a time when you're necessarily going to be supported you know again we we may be the last five years there's there's me there are more avenues legitimate ways in which your project can be you're not saying that it was impossible then but it wasn't it really wasn't to me a viable option you know it was about trying to move up and get casting and the next thing and use this to get back and that to get so I was always very conscious of sort of scaling the wall you know for example my big break was actually a movie that I was in for two scenes and that was in 2015 I shopping that movie is kicks I'm very small film directed by a gentleman by the name of Justin tipping and the reason I say that that was my big break is because that that film that ended up coming out I think a month before moonlight came out was how I got in life and so I had been working up and up to that point for 15 years and I was often you know playing these guys who were like a house of cards sort of of the business world he's obviously a lobbyist a police officer type FBI agent II kind of thing and I had done some character work like I was in Fincher's Benjamin Button but and that's where my heart is just wanting to do that kind of work like transformational stuff but it was all kind of none of it I didn't get the exhaust it at all and so I did this film and I was really surprised to get an offer on this film because it was a character that I'd never had an opportunity to play it was somebody or of a world that I never had the opportunity to be in and so here's this guy who's from Oakland he'd been in prison you know years earlier and sort of was just a brother from the and that had never been my experience and so I was really excited to do these two scenes and they were there pre fleshed out and I did it I don't really think a lot of the of it I thought the film was good I feel like the phone had potential and when they were casting like I went to another gentleman first and for whatever reason that didn't happen and one of the producers approached Barry about me and at the time very sad bear Jenkins director of moonlight and Barry said well he's kind of squared you know like and he didn't mean it as a dislike he just meant like everything he siad do is very much like in a suit you know arresting somebody and and it was so a de leur romansky the one of the producers executive producer of moonlight and who had produced on kicks the film barely cut and edited she showed them my scenes from kicked and that's how I got off from like was because of that and so that was the opening for me and so I've always been extraordinarily conscious and and in whatever little power I had cuz I've said no my entire career from back to 2000 it didn't feel right I don't care how broke I was my grandparents cared but it didn't matter how broke I was if that part didn't speak to me in some way if there wasn't something I could do with it I would say no and so I was always really conscious of the build and it felt like as I was scaling the wall there are years in which I felt like I was slipping down and trying to come back up but always trying to get to a place of sort of empowerment where I can make more conscious deliberate choices about the things that I was doing and and have more control on my own development and evolution and in that and that advanced and excuse me as an actor so we've been talking a lot I think it's time for us to take a look at one of the scenes from one of your earlier films the Curious Case of Benjamin Button you you I read that uh unlike a lot of other actors you're okay with re watching the films that you've been in I haven't seen that continue yeah how did that feel watching that strange like totally strange you know I I don't know how to get better unless out watch it and so even that I'm like oh okay what but you know it's all the process like you don't get it when it's time when I don't I'm not interested in that I really will be doing something else like I will retire or whatever like I just I just I watching dailies or watching green book I see oh okay that's what stands out to me like glad if people are so happy if people are responding to the work and it's resonating but it's really not my job to enjoy like I don't really look at it like that it's really my job to go oh okay well this is that's cool you were able to accomplish this that and other but as someone who is hired to push a story along to to be a key participant in storytelling how do i how do I do that better you know and so so and I that for me that's that's the that's part of the joy is when I go home at night I'm like oh that was better or if I'm having a rough day or if I'm not the scene requires something emotionally and I'm just tapped for whatever reason how do i technique my way through this scenario so that I'm not getting in the way of the story being told in a way that can really impact the audience in the manner in which he are setting out to do what can you lean back on in your craft yeah so you booked the Curious Case of Benjamin Button while you were shooting the death scene of your character in 44-hundred yeah what was it like making that transition from series regular it's a Hollywood film or not even what was it like but what did it mean to you to make that transition um it it really you know my first time working with David Fincher you know and it's a good first film yeah and it was just having a peek into the door and film was in a different place in that time compared to now meaning I should say television was in a very different place and it was extraordinary difficult to go from crossing Jordan on NBC to like David Fincher yeah yeah it wasn't happening like that you know yes I know it was you did theater you were kind of in theater and you trying I got on Law & Order and you go back into a play you know and if you were on TV back then it was like man I'm trying to get a pilot man all right see for pilot season 2 in LA and everyone's just trying to book a pilot on whatever network and so the film was like once you were in TV like Anthony Mackie and I came out of school you went to Julliard he came out of school like a couple of years after maybe a year or two and Anthony like hopped right in the feature film like immediately he was like the lead and unexpectly and and he stayed there like never left film you know we might have a TV show nurse boat but essentially he's just been in film and that time coming out of school in 2000 once you were on TV you were like all right I paid my grad school debts you know but you were gonna be on TV so it was a huge deal for me - to book that part which was because I was on a show shooting it in Canada called the 4400 which shot in Vancouver and there were qualities in that character that David Fincher had liked and that's really what sort of opened the door for me to book that part okay okay that was when you were writing those rhymes yeah speaking of which as a musician what role does music playing the preparation of your characters music is huge I placed so much music and the trailers in the makeup trailer like and it's all character specific music so I was a shooting tree detective and the little bit I can tell you is that it takes place in over several decades and so if I we're shooting in 1980 that day I don't listen to anything beyond 1980 you know and if it's 1990 I have a character playlist or music that I'm open to that will lead up until 90 and if it's beyond that it's the same thing and it's all because we are frequency yeah and music changes your frequency so it's for me part of the foundation of my character work is tapping into either the music that my character responds to or music of the world and at the time that my character would be aware of or sort of cross paths in some ways with or hear or if it's something that that is so if I'm shooting something that's that was 1919 and you know it's hard to get there's like these slave shouts and some old folk music but it's really hard to date and whatnot and I'm finding things that essentially capture the essence of that character and time but but music plays as a has a big part in my in my it plays baby part of my my process I'm just putting out there but I would love to hear the playlist for your character so as I'm marketing I feel like you should realize playlist after several times yeah yeah no thank you but I will I will at you all right so I think we're gonna see another two clips this time clip from the place beyond the pines and a clip from house of cards [Music] you for many people Remy Danton was the breakout role that kind of made you a household name what do you think it was about Remy that captivated people or that attracted that caught people's attention we've never seen that character in 2013 when it premiered a black lobbyist somebody who was cold and calculated but at some point he also had a conscience he was really intelligent stood up to the president and really had a real vision for for what he was doing and trying to accomplish like he was he was actively pursuing something and very aggressive about it he wasn't he's not a passive character and I think for you know sometimes when you when you you put a different person or a different being in that circumstances in that circumstance that environment a black man and that was I think was relatively unique for and we don't we hadn't up into that point had a lot of shows that had a real focus on the inner workings of politics or the presidency or the or the White House and this show was some sort of glimpse into that in a way that even when we went to the White House Correspondents Dinner in like 2014 I felt like the Beatles don't open they're like they were so excited to see us and time and again they kept saying like wow man it's so I'm a lobbyist I'm so blown away by what you're doing it's like seeing myself up there and I was like oh my god that I just think you know my mom was like I don't like him like how he wears a suit I'd say whatever you came on the screen conversation uh how did you know you were ready to move on from house of cards hmm I wasn't growing and I didn't want to be just another actor on a series that wasn't just on you know I had friends that were telling me like maybe you want to get off this show and I just didn't I I just knew wasn't going anywhere for me and I didn't want to be I approached them about it and I said hey look I think this is a great time to write me out the show because you're at a place where every season they're sort of transitioning and finding what what the story the arc is gonna be for the year and I didn't feel like where the show was that and where I was at personally I didn't feel like that they were necessarily in alignment and I wasn't going to necessarily ask them to write more for me I'm really not that kind of person I kinda feel like if you want to do it you will do it and I can receive it much better than if I'm saying ain't right more for me you know I was kind of like well look I don't feel like you necessarily need me so let me go pursue other opportunities and um you know it took a little while took a year but then I was able to get off the show and I really appreciate what they did and how much respect they show toward my desire to move on and to go because I just wasn't I just didn't feel like I was being challenged you know and so that last season I went from being a series regular to a guest star and I had to do like at least four episodes I ended up doing like maybe like six but because I had been making that request for over a year I was able to work on and that last season of house of cards at the same time I was cheating house of cards Luke Cage moonlight and one other project kicks may be kicks and then future relic I was shooting my five like literally like for about a month it was like kind of everyday I was either working or traveling to go to a different job the playlist came in really really did alright I'm in Miami now okay that's what I'm gonna pots you there because I think this is a great time to look at two clips from light and hidden figures you you you [Applause] yes when you were making hitter figures did you have any idea how big an impact it would have no well I felt like it was gonna be good you don't know when you read I didn't know I didn't know what it was going to be and what I mean by that is if Ted Melfi had done he done like one other film and it was that I knew and it was really different mm-hmm from this and so when you saw as actors and you're going like who's producing it like what is what is what tint is this film gonna have on it you know when you don't have a lot of information yeah for a director that has a track record you know so on the page it read and looked one way and then when I saw the film I was like oh okay this is what we made you know and that happens a lot you sometimes you're you're responding to the to the larger story and the character and opportunity to work with this actor or that actor and really in part I really love the story and I loved that I loved how it it shine the spotlight on these three women and honestly at that time I was really tired and I just done those four or five projects and I did a play so I was moving to LA at that time but I thought you know this is this is a good project it's kind of stop what I'm doing and go shoot and work on this for like three weeks in Atlanta and sort of lend my support to that larger narrative of the story that was featuring like three extraordinary black women and what and what they accomplished what they did was exceptional and so I just really my my participation in that film was really first and foremost from that place the fact that it came out and it was so well received the way it was was sort of icing on the cake yeah yeah I want to talk about one night hmm watched probably too many interviews with you talk about it good not just for research but prior to and I am struck by the way that you describe your relationship to one almost feels like a true relationship like there is you know this falling in love with the character immersing yourself being completely consumed and some on the days that you were shooting and maybe even beyond and then the sort of morning when the time came to leave one behind as well to do can you talk a little bit about how your craft helps to foster that deep connection to the character and why one specifically was able to bring that out in you hmm I did something with wand that I hadn't done himthen up until that point I remember being in a hotel in Miami and I was really nervous and we were about to start shooting like next day and I had ever like prayed for a character before so I found myself an effort to be or cuz I look regardless if atheist or whatever Christian Buddhist have you I just believe we're all spirits at the end of the day and so what I wanted to do and it wasn't like a technique thing but just out of my love for these characters and out of the and for the work it was the first time that I actually prayed for a character like he was a little person and then later I found out he was a real person actually which was shared later yeah and twirl Alvin McCraney told me sort of little real story later but so I found myself like praying for him and I was happy conversations with him just in a certain way wanting to know what he wanted me to share and what he wanted me to know and I just approached it like that I'm always making up stuff but I really approached it like that and that was the deepest connection that up until that point that I never had with the character because I think I tried to walk into it respecting him as a spirit first and build and build everything on that and so I felt like at the very least I was trying to communicate an energy and one that was loving and supportive and circumstances are just what they are you know growing up in the projects and finding yourself in a situation where some and drug seems like the thing that makes the most sense and what is readily available and you know in a way and a means for yourself and all in all he was like a middle-class drug dealer if you if you think about where he lived and in some way to his very discrete and was trying to have a life and some capacity that he could sustain for as long as possible and so I was trying to relate to him first and foremost from from a spiritual place so after I saw him lay I went on like this crazy rabbit hole deep dive trying to read everything that everybody was writing about it because I just wanted to stay in the world longer and I realized that very few things that were being written were being written by black men and so I I'm lucky enough to have a platform I write a weekly column I opened it up to eight black men to share their thoughts on what moonlight was and I want to read when one of those men okay he's his name is David Lewis pert and I'm reading this with his permission what most surprised me during the film was just how uncomfortable and unaccustomed I was to observing an elder black man and a young black boy interact in the absence of any kind of violence manipulation or intimidation I found myself cautiously watching as their relationship unfolded and examining it for any signs of the inappropriate distrustful I waited for a shoe to drop but that in fact was what the story really pushed one said to the little shyrone whatever happens I got you can I trust this man I was genuinely moved when I realized shyrone and I both could trust him and you get to work on something like this a role that fundamentally challenges even the people who look like the character you're representing and might connect even more than most does it create a new standard in the types of roles that you look for for yourself first I'm just grateful and I think it definitely has contributed for sure it was doing been working on Barrett's film was like getting to do a Steans scene Argus August Wilson and I could see instead of class for the first time in school or the pro-league play for instance it was there was something about being at home and feeling like even though no one is obviously people in the film longer than others but it's it was sort of a short experience for all of us like Naomi Harris shot that in three days you know all her work was done in three days mine was in like six or something and really shouldn't have been that but she was having trouble getting into the states so we had to like push mine back so my point is really just having writing that felt however short-lived the character was that they felt like full moments and so if anything you get informed on what it is finally to feel like a fleshed out human being on screen with just opportunity to just kind of sit there and drive or to look at someone or and use that as dialog you know like I'm not customed to having that kind of time free I'm not accustomed to the camera being on you on me and you having time to necessarily process the thoughts and the math that one does in making a decision you know so I think if anything I have moving on from that I think I just feel a greater commitment to finding stories and characters where they just feel there's an opportunity to to play a full-fledged human being so let's go to that other job that you're working at the time Luke Cage [Laughter] I love cottonmouth yeah that was a great role I was waiting for the moment we came back from the devas by I read that you raised it in doing something with Marvel for a minute before it was cotton auth what kind of role were you thinking about and if there was a particular character well I was I was just interested in the world to some degree and and I had met with them on different things and you know they're they're meeting other people too obviously you know and so that was the one when that came back around as I was on that last season of house of cards and the first thing the same casting director ray Mayfield that that cast house of cars is Luke Cage and she says all right first marshal ooh he's gonna die all right it's only six episodes cause he's like I was like I'm not signing up for another TV show right now like no I'm free got my freedom I'm like pursuing like imma find something you know and she was like well he's gonna die like Episode six or seven I was like sounds good and and what that did was that really freed me up while I loved working on that was I just knew I could just go for it and tell you know till I got thrown out the window yeah so so yeah but I hadn't at that time I hadn't had I had like a conversation about one of their shows earlier on but uh but that was the first time it was it became real and and I just I just wanted to be in the world and be in that comic book world for a moment and did it and at the time it looked like you had a good time I want to make sure we have time for all your questions so I'm going to jump to the next clip which is us getting to see a little bit of true detective oh let's see that one you you're now a leading man how does that feel it feels good I found going back to my dad work like I was in so I had this I moved out of New York in 2000 and I hadn't really been back I hadn't been back to Brooklyn until like right before I got married so I'm talking like 13 years I've been in New York but it was like enough and I don't know it might be like Toronto but New York you can't just like go to New York and empty your storage locker like you got to figure out how you're gonna like dispose of all the stuff but where you gonna put it like I live in LA I was living on the west coast so it wasn't like an easy thing to do so finally when my wife and I knew each other from from grad school and many years later we reconnected like 12 years later we reconnected so get married and we're in New York and she goes what's up with your storage when'd you clear that out I said I cleared that up she's like yes I hadn't cleared out my storage I'm going through it and I'm the type where I have to go through every single paper like everything I every picture I just throw it away just throw hay and I'm like going through everything every picture and I find his card and it's it's a postcard it's of my father so back in like the 80s 90s they started I remember when it happened because he got these new headshots and then he got this postcard and this was like the beginning of like the gym era and he looked amazing all this muscles or muscles and he had this picture where his shirt was off and he had had his hands like this and you could see the bottom of his chin he was standing up and his pants on and it was like this extraordinary postcard and I somehow had that but it was my it was my grandmother's copy of him and I lived with my grandparents in high school and in the summers throughout undergrad and so when I moved in by you I must have taken that and some other things and so this is 2014 and I was in the process of like trying to get off a house of cards and my managers who was here tonight Carolyn go she's been hearing me say uh-huh we've been together for 12 years and she's been hearing me have the courage to vocalize since 2009 that I believed that I was a leading man like I had to that's even hard for me to say in front of you but believe me like you don't come from where I come from unless you tell yourself things like that like you gotta own it you got a you got a you got it you got to give it to yourself in that way and if that never happened for me it didn't happen for me but so I'm in the storage I mean I'm in Brooklyn going through the stores I find this postcard of my dad and I turn to my wife I was like oh look at this and I turn it over and it says hey mom still trying to be that leave man and when I saw that it just for me I was like you doing the right thing like keep going like keep pushing keep pushing it so so long story short like I feel it's exhausting but I feel good about it you know I feel good about what I'm very proud of our work and what everyone accomplished on that season we're aging and in different decades it was like 80 hour weeks like legitimately 116 days I think I worked out of 120 like every week was like 70 hour weeks and sometimes in the 80s like every week because the aging makeup and all that so but not feel good about the story and the writing and the directing and all the acting contributions that guest stars the day players like everybody crew it's it's I think we I think we did something special like everybody was I'm really excited about that season we are excited we're gonna go to the film in this festival right now we're gonna see a clip from Green Book you you you I love how how graceful just for some context my characters never had fried chicken in his life true story and so that was him being introduced to fried chicken a little bit about this movie Wow it's green book is about two gentlemen who go on a concert tour in 1962 through the segregated south and I play down Shirley a concert pianist and spoke seven or eight languages fluently had three doctorates studied in Russia and lived in London and there's no type of Carnegie Hall at the time of in 1962 and there's artists lofts up there and he needs a bouncer he needs somebody because he's a little concerned about going on this concert tour and so he hires kind of the toughest guy in New York City to drive him through the segregated south and they couldn't be more different and and so they're there on this journey together in an intimate space on this tour and they have to kind of separate at night or for dinner because of the South being segregated that's why the title of the film is is green book because there was what was called a Negro motorist green book which was a travelers guide that informed African Americans people of color as to where they could sleep dine you know eat get gas all these you know normal services and and for a lot of black people it was actually really freeing this travelers guide because so many all my family is from the south even though everyone grew up like my grandmother even my father they grew up in the Bay Area but they're all really from Texas and like Kentucky so you imagine someone passes away you can't fly eight people on an airplane so they're hopping in cars traveling they need to know whether they can you know how how to have safe passage so I hope you guys all go see it I'm about to turn it over to the audience but before I do we started this conversation with me dropping some bars so to speak so I feel like it's only fair that we end this conversation with with oh you know just gracing us with a few you know have to be a freestyle I can either you know do that you but you know dream filled landscapes fog from London the Bay Bridge painted with the midst of money the Bay Bridge painted in the midst of Moncton top moves with slugs on the geriatric rat race causing chequebook contortions pregnant with ambition on a second abortion seats from the swamps gotta settle for quicksand fighting this condition is known to cause drowning I hold my breath inhale with every bit of life I have left sprouted from the marshlands and lifted off last spotted out in no-man's land lost in this labyrinth of nomadic masters following footprints the green of front lawns white picket fences is really the big business features the farm living excludes my weather we got th DS a pocket in six figures slinging Cola out in DC heathens routed outside with a scenic and I wonder what my long stay wheezing and this fog in this fog fill region ironically I gotta get Lynch to keep breathing stay weaving bin the corners white-knuckle in the rite of passage wafting off octane from the Middle Passage drift in the wake of caskets no wonder why we want to live doc no wonder why we want to die lavish we need some summer lack of something similar mamas breast milk was dripping cyanide sipping on the nipple that's been up for auction the diamond on her finger never made it mine we need some similar lack of something similar momma's breast milk was dripping cyanide sipping on that nipple that's been up for auction that diamond on her finger never made it [Applause] sorry that a sound guy but in Toronto and something is baby up there bang on okay so we're gonna turn it over to the audience right now there are people there volunteers and orange t-shirts who have mics you have to wait for the mic please stand up when you get the mic please keep it to a question not a comment so we can get a mate with them as possible thank you so much how you doing and thank you for coming out all y'all appreciate it thank you my name is Kumar do no good yeah I have to write this one down so being a black male actor what's your thoughts about the black man boys in the film industry and do you feel our narrative is being limited to the narrative of sports crime sexuality identity and the mainstream in the mainstream in the film industry and not to say those events are not true but what was the first part of your question being a black male actor yeah where do you work your thoughts about the black men voice you know I always feel conflicted about about that and this is why like I remember being in school and it was I was 97 and then 97 I can actually must have been 98 cuz I Oscars wrong and but it was my first year and I was there three years and I remember there was like this just like lounge lobby area the TV was on and there was like some second and third years to do that's watching the Oscars were there till 11:00 at night in classes or whatever getting off book and I remember it was like Samuel Jackson popped up and he was like presenting or something and I remember someone said just not hurt the whole thing and someone goes oh man he's any great I love Samuel Jackson and then some was like oh no he's good but Morgan Freeman loved Morgan Freeman like really yeah but denzel's good and that was the moment when I realized that oh um you don't see me as equal because these were none of them were black and they just slipped into this conversation of like it wasn't oh I love Samuel Jackson like oh but Robert Duvall like Boba it was a list of like just slipped into black actors and so in part is obviously african-american and very proud to be but also there's this thing about just really wanting to be the best actor I can and who happens to be black you know it's like if you were a software engineer what not it's not we have the best black software engineer in the country working for our company you just like I'm a software engineer like and I'm good at it you know or whatever trying to be good at it and so but the fact is that we are informed by our culture and our race and it informs our exchanges and our conversations and all of that and in some way stamps it says something about how we're to be looked at in the world and we hold it we give it a lot of value and it should it should but I would just like to see our stories stories that we lead our writers directors I would just like all of our projects all those participating all those in all those creatives to continue to push the culture forward and for those things to continue to deepen and improve and all of us to be stretched and so I think we actually are living in a time where the wreaths there's a reason why sorry bother you is exists get out moon like we're in a time where these plumes are popping up that aren't that are not your run-of-the-mill you know gangster drug dealer projects or whatnot that are sort of an old model you know I think we're in a time when something is clearly expanding and opening up and there are new voices random acts of limas on HBO turns to show like things that are actually ISA Ray Show there are several contributions that people need to pay attention to because this is the this generation right now is the one I think this is the Renaissance I think this is the time and which voices are really going today I think the roof is gonna blow off I think it's in the process of that happening like like right now you know and it's hard because it happens so incrementally or it kind of feels like it's happening slowly in real time but I really I really believe it's happening and and so I just encourage you just as an actor like the world is always going to see you first as a black man and that's how that's how I relate to the world as well but on a sort of on a deeper level I also just want to make sure that I'm relating to the world as a human being someone who is who is in his own struggle to be better and I try to like relate to these stories and connect to these people as human beings trying to live that fullest lives and to have fulfillment and so I also want to be careful of all of our stories having such a racial component in it where it becomes the driving force of the story because that's not my life every I'm black everyday but everything is not racial for me like sometimes it's gonna start but somebody's getting a coffee and that's just it it's not about you know is that cop watching me follow me and so to me I think what's interesting is stories that not necessarily that are absent of that component but where it's not the driving force of it you know because it's just that's just not what it is all the time and I think if we could find that balance is I think that's a worthy offering as well not to sanitize or erase race from it but how about just two black people in love period or trying to just stay together and figure it out the middle-class black family you know and one's a therapist and they're going through a divorce and trying to stay together you're like why people do it all the time laughs yeah you know and there's a good movie that's period but it wasn't like you know a white guilt story or something it was just a story you know about two people dealing with like real human issues you know so I didn't see myself as any different as an actor I if anything I was just really appreciative at the that the opportunities were were were finally in front of me and on a on a larger level I think for me and my own relationship in my own spiritual journey I feel like I'm I feel like I'm at where I'm supposed to be at and that certain things may have been withheld from me splitter from a guy that I view because maybe I just wasn't ready or maybe maybe I wouldn't have handled it well or or perhaps I needed a certain type of balance in my life before those things happen before you suddenly have access to excess and maybe you don't have the discipline to to say no or to navigate that well and so if you end up just being unhealthy than what is really the point you know and so so no I don't really just I don't see myself any different necessarily as an actor I think my responsibility is the same I feel different a little more tired yeah but but um excited and just I feel really really blessed unfortunate to have had some of the experiences and because I've I'm having these opportunities later in comparison than most people who are at this place I feel like I just naturally bring a certain degree of experience because I'm I'm used to contributing less to the story in a certain way so I'm sort of I come to work off-book ready to go and I make choices and I do it quick because I've had to do that like the director never had time to direct me you know so I had to make my own choices and direct myself so I kind of work very independently you know I'm happy to be directed but I don't necessarily lean on directors I just is not my way because I came up different you know we have time for one more question there it is hi I'm Caroline I'm a writer podcaster my question for you is is there a particular type of role that would make you hesitant to take it on or that you would never plan I asked this because you played everything from a drug dealer - I got you stir to an Air Force jet someone working in figures and you've covered a gamut of roles but is there anything that would make him hesitant to accept a particular it's my I would even describe those people that in that way but in all honesty anytime I get a script I don't necessarily categorize a character through their occupation you know is there a human on that page and do can is there something I can I can bring to it you know is there is there it does it does it speak to me in a way where I can shed some light on it does it have something to teach me for instance I pray I played a character that um I wouldn't say I'm not proud of him but it's not it's not something that I can really watch so I did this film I'm a huge hip-hop fan we're gonna go over time by about a couple of minute or two um so I did this film um Roxanne Roxanne I took that for a couple of reasons but it wasn't because so here's a guy who has no redeeming qualities at all and he is with girl but is based on a true story and he's in his 30s he's with a girl who was sixteen and not only that he is physically abusive he's a drug dealer he ends up becoming a drug addict you name it and that's not the kind of part that I would just wake up and go I want to play this drug addict drug dealer pedophile guy beaten a girl right didn't and honestly I had I had nightmares the last week of shooting like legit like every night the last week of shooting I couldn't sleep because I would just wake up sweating and just because like like we're doing these things over and over again I'm shaking or choking or doing all this it was just awful and but the reason I did that was because for so many women for them to get to a place where whether we know them or not but for so many with women for them to get to a place where they are relatively safe in some regards I've had success or fulfillment in their own way a lot of them have had to step over men to get there right and so if if Roxanne Shante this is really her story and I appreciate and respect her as a person then it was about me lending my talents to help tell her story right so I had to be willing to be a villain that I would never want to be in order to tell her story so it's hard for me to say that I would never play X Y & Z because for me I have to do the math on why I would even consider playing that part and honestly the reason I did that part was to support her story too cuz somebody had to tell it like if it wasn't gonna be me then another actor had to have the courage to step up and play a part that has absolutely no redeeming qualities and you're gonna be the bad guy and if you look online I hate mush lolly you believe like seriously like you know I was like oh god this is horrible I can act it but but but so I always try to just I try to look at there's more to it than that I think for me and if I'm gonna be real about it like I think the vanity is something that it really doesn't serve you in this work like not if you want to be not if you look at like you know a Daniel day-lewis on the show Viola Davis or Philip Seymour Hoffman or Viggo Mortensen like Mark Ruffalo like all these people that like I stop when I'm doing when they pop old Gene Hackman movies De Niro whatever like they what I loved about these films in the seventies in the 60s when like they were just going there and committed to it and vanity really wasn't didn't really have its space like you just have to do it be there go there and that's sort of the school I come from so so I try to keep there's things I do say no to them because it just doesn't make any sense at all to me you know like it feels so good to its that it just is not for me but but at the beginning I'm hoping until I feel there's a real reason to say no just a reminder that great book is active right now you can go see it this week it's coming out in theaters in November tree detective is coming very soon you can see my her Sheila thank you all for coming it was a pleasure it [Applause] you

Channel: TIFF Talks

Views: 33,611

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: tiff, live, 2018, tiff2018, toronto, international, film, festival, Mahershala Ali, The 4400, Crossing Jordan, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Place Behind the Pines, The Hunger Games, House of Cards, Moonlight, Luke Cage, The Green Book, True Detective

Id: bptBqgbf69I

Length: 95min 25sec (5725 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 10 2018