Jeffrey Wright Tells Stories That Matter

Published by The Editor at January 26, 2013

Actor Jeffrey Wright’s outstanding performances in films like “Basquiat”, “Angels in America” and “Boycott” have earned him the love of audiences and critics. His skills have enabled him to portray great men like Jean Michel Baquiat, Martin Luther King and Muddy Waters, and his work has earned him a Tony Award, an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe. He’s also played Felix Leiter in two Bond films, and will be in the next Hunger Games movie. Recently he stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about his newest film, “Broken City”. Excerpts of the interview appear below.

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Ron Bennington: Another film about corruption in government – because we’re never going to be able to beat that, are we? The corruption.

Jeffrey Wright: Well, I think it’s timeless. (laughs)

Ron Bennington: Yeah, it is. It’s a timeless thing.

Jeffrey Wright: A timeless subject. Yeah.

Ron Bennington: Well, the whole chase for power and the want for power – it kind of brings those kind of people to the top. The game that you play.

Jeffrey Wright: Yeah. When we were thinking through the film and working on it, we really viewed it more of a gangster film than as a political film. It was those same type of dynamics and same type of hunger for power exists even more so. It’s an even greater power in politics. But this is an old story. It’s as old as “Julius Caesar” – as Shakespeare writing “Julius Caesar”, how many hundreds of years ago? And it’s as old as…it was played out in Rome and it’s played out now. (laughs)

Ron Bennington: When Coppola did “The Godfather”, he said to him it was about corporations. It was really about the corporate life. And when you get into that – it’s really weird that you have to kind of, whether you’re in a city government or a corporation, whatever – you have to live somewhat of a dishonest life to move up the ladder.

Jeffrey Wright: Well, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true that you have to be dishonest. But there’s compromise that you have to make and the question becomes – how much are you willing to compromise? But I’ll tell you what. It’s not in who are you willing to compromise and what part of yourself are you willing to compromise, but it’s not solely a function of politics. It happens in Hollywood too. It happens in this business as well where you say – I’ll do that part, but I don’t really feel that good about that aspect of it, but I’ll let that go because the money is saying something else. And what you’re willing to do to get into the room and to continue your career and you see it all the time. You see people making choices that maybe they shouldn’t make.

Ron Bennington: Well, and you get into that – I’ll do one for me and one for them and back and forth. And then before you know it, you really are.

Jeffrey Wright: Yeah, exactly. But that’s why this film is not so much about…”Broken City” is not so much about New York, but it’s about a larger idea. New York in the film, really could be Chicago. It could be Philadelphia. It could be Metropolis. It’s just fertile ground for these types of behaviors among the characters, and so therefore it becomes much more personal about the choices that they make or are willing to make and the struggle against one another. So, it’s not an exposé by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a – we hope, a bigger idea than that.

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Jeffrey Wright Talks About The Film Being Directed by Only One Hughes Brother

Ron Bennington: This film is directed by half the Hughes brothers.

Jeffrey Wright: Yes.

Ron Bennington: It’s unbelievable to me that they’re not working on this together. The Coen brothers and the Hughes brothers having always been that thing of – they’re both together no matter what. What happened on this one?

Jeffrey Wright: Well, I think Allen…I think Allen’s brother (Albert) is living in Prague now. And I think he’s happy over there. (laughs) He wanted to chill out in Prague a little bit longer, but Allen is fantastic. I have respect for his work with his brother. And he’s a big part of why I am in this film. And it was great working with him. And as well, the writer is a young guy named Brian Tucker who’s from Chicago actually. So some of the influences for him in writing this were Chicago city politics, as rough as that can be. But Brian is a young African-American writer as it turns out, which I didn’t realize when I was reading it, how would you? But it’s really exciting for me to support his work and support Allen’s work and then Mark Wahlberg is real fantastic to work with and one of the producers of the film as well. Great story – Mark’s story is a great story. When I read this film – in terms of the arc of his life, coming from having a made a few mistakes early on, but rewriting his story as he goes on to be one of the most influential guys in Hollywood and a good guy. But when I read the piece originally – it reminded me of a Humphrey Bogart movie.

Ron Bennington: The old school, yeah.

Jeffrey Wright: The old school rugged rogue detective who’s out carving his own way. And I thought – the more I got to know Mark, it made even more sense to me. Because he’s got that similar kind of likeability, but authenticity – was a street kid, but he’s got an accessibility to him and a grit to him. So he really brings a lot to this movie.

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Jeffrey Wright Talks About American Street Culture

Ron Bennington: And there’s less and less street in American culture, don’t you think? Because we’re on kids about education and they’re taken from one school to the next and then they’re dumped as an adult and they have no idea the hustle which is a big part of how people get ahead.

Jeffrey Wright: Yeah, you’ve got to have a connection to the real world. You got to have the common touch certainly and that’s a part of one’s education too. Yeah, and I think one thing I miss in movies is films from the street that really kind of examine the humanness of people’s lives – ordinary people’s lives which you don’t see too much in the cinema as we used to. I was watching – a film came on the other day, “Claudine” with James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll. And James Earl Jones was a garbage man. It’s a movie about a woman who’s struggling – a single mother with multiple children and no man until this garbage man shows up, but it’s the most beautiful relationship that they have. And the humanity between all these characters, it’s fleshed out in a way that we don’t see anymore. I think it’s tragic. And it says something about where we place our value now in society.

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Jeffrey Wright Talks About Choosing Who to Work With

Ron Bennington: You’ve done a really great job, I think, in your career at picking a lot of like quirky interesting directors to work with. Interesting projects. Is that done on purpose or did you luck out with some of these things?

Jeffrey Wright: Well, Ben Hogan, the great golfer, was asked one time by a reporter, he said – you think you’re getting luckier as your career goes? He said – yeah, the more I practice, the luckier I get. (laughs)

Ron Bennington: Right. So, just stay with it.

Jeffrey Wright: So, I did a lot of work and some directors started to take a liking to my work and asked me to work with them now. But at the same time, what appeals to me is the script, always. That’s the first thing that jumps off at me. For example, I just – talk about interesting directors, I just finished a movie last year with Jim Jarmusch. And the movie’s coming out…I don’t know when it’s coming out, some time later this year, I expect though. But directors like Jim, are such rarities, such singular talents that I just jump at the opportunity to work with a guy like that. Because he’s a real artist and there’s a sense when you’re on set with him that he’s controlling the show. It’s not the money outside the stage that’s controlling it. We’re not being dictated to by that, but we’re trying to tell a story that’s coming from him, from his mind and his heart. And so, you feel uncompromised in that space and you do interesting work there. So, I like to try to find situations like that, but then as well, I’ll do bigger budget things like “Hunger Games”, I’m working on now. But likewise, even in that environment, it’s a sense that we’re telling this story. Obviously, we got…it’s a huge budget and huge expectations. But at the same time, we’re trying to grind at a story that we think is good stuff. It’s based in literary content. It’s introducing ideas about violence and war and the consequences of war to kids in a way that we hope is useful, but also we want to it to be an exciting cinematic experience too. Every project that I do, has it’s own purpose and it’s own reason and it’s own sensibilities.

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Jeffrey Wright Talks About Basquiat

Ron Bennington: Well, the first time I remember seeing you in a film and I’ve watched this film so many times, is “Basquiat”. And that film – and I bet I’ve watched in 20 times since then. (Jeffrey laughs) I just watch it over because I never thought as much about the subconscious. The fact that you could see the painter paint and know that it’s kind of being unveiled to him as well as to the audience at the same time. For me, that was mind changing in the way that I look at any art.

Jeffrey Wright: Wow, wow. Thank you

Ron Bennington: It’s just…it was such an incredible role. And from that point on, I’ve always followed your career.

Jeffrey Wright: I appreciate that.

Ron Bennington: I’ve always followed your career.

Jeffrey Wright: I appreciate that. Well that was a very meaningful story for me to be a part of because I had such respect for Jean-Michel Basquiat, the artist who I think was maybe a shaman in a way he expressed himself.

Ron Bennington: That’s exactly what he was.

Jeffrey Wright: And so I had an opportunity to be a part of introducing his story to a much wider audience and introducing his work to a much wider audience. So that was really gratifying because I think the messaging that’s within his work is so powerful and so rare. The celebration of American history, but through the lens of great African-Americans figures – these great homages to Muhammad Ali or to Miles Davis and he’s celebrating, in some of his work, celebrating these figures that I too find are kind of like mythic heroes. So, he speaks a language that I very much appreciate.

Ron Bennington: And I think that most of the time when he sat down to do it – he had no idea. Don’t you think like – what he was doing next? He just allowed it to happen in that moment.

Jeffrey Wright: Yeah. I think that’s very true. That it kind of came out of him. He knew what was happening in that he had – very clearly, had a deep intellectual reservoir he was pulling from. And very specific interests as a cultural observer, an observer of history and an observer of the times. So, it wasn’t random. He was coming from a very specific, a very grounded place that was his own. But as far as the work flowed out of him, I don’t think he was predicting that.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. Whatever kind of filter that he put on it – he kind of allowed to happen. That’s why the stuff of crossing stuff out – it’s just genius.

Jeffrey Wright: Oh incredible. Incredible.

Ron Bennington: The interesting thing is we all should have went and bought his paintings before you did that film because they’re hundreds of millions of dollars now. And I think a gigantic part of that has to do with the love of people for that film.

Jeffrey Wright: No. (laughs)

Ron Bennington: They do.

Jeffrey Wright: Yes. I think you’re absolutely right. One of his pieces sold for – maybe about 12, 18 months after the film came out – one of his pieces sold for $4.3 million and it was all off to the races after that. (laughs)

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Jeffrey Wright Talks About Muddy Waters

Ron Bennington: Now one of the things also about your career that’s so interesting – is you play so many real people. You’ve had that opportunity in life. Is that an accident?

Jeffrey Wright: Uh..maybe I’m too literal. I don’t know. But I’ve played Basquiat. I’ve played Martin Luther King in a movie for HBO called “Boycott” about the Montgomery bus boycott. I played Colin Powell in “W”. I played Muddy Waters in “Cadillac Records”. I don’t know. People come to me – once you do a couple and they’re kind of interesting and then people come to you and you’re bio-pic guy. I try to pepper it with fictional characters too. But again, the idea is always, well not always, but most of the time is to see how we can introduce lives that I think are really important and stories that I think are really important and historical to audiences who didn’t necessarily think about them. Like with Muddy Waters for example – that we could celebrate that music which is the touchstone, the origin of all modern music.

Ron Bennington: Right. It is. And especially American music.

Jeffrey Wright: American music that went around the globe and became Led Zeppelin’s version of the blues, rock and roll – the Rolling Stones…

Ron Bennington: Clapton songs.

Jeffrey Wright: But nobody gives…nobody to the extent that they should, gives credit to the originators. And that’s what I think is very important that we respect the source of these things and recognize that a guy like Muddy Waters, that without him – there is no Mick Jagger. There is no Robert Plant. It doesn’t exist. And in fact, and they, they are the first ones to tell you that.

Ron Bennington: To a man.

Jeffrey Wright: To a man.

Ron Bennington: When the British guys come in here, and I’ve had a chance to talk to so many guys from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They know so much more about American music than Americans. I mean not only do they know Muddy, but they know who played bass.

Jeffrey Wright: Oh absolutely.

Ron Bennington: They know who was playing every single instrument. Guys that Americans have no idea who they are.

Jeffrey Wright: Right. Muddy was among…in the first, I mean among the first 3 to electrify the blues. There was no electric blues before that cat. (laughs) And what’s amazing about him is that he was illiterate. He wrote all this music – couldn’t read. I mean he was just a super human to me. So that’s why, telling a story like that, I think is important. But when you look at like the Rolling Stones – I went to their concert. I went down at Barclays. I live in Brooklyn. I walked down to the Barclays Center. It’s was great, man. I went down to see the Stones down there. And I’m actually friends with Darryl Jones who plays bass and with Bernard Fowler who sings backup with them. So, I went down to check out the boys. And I had so much more appreciation for them now. And I’ve seen them 5 or 6 times, but now seeing Keith and Mick – they’re 90,000 years old out there and they’re still killing it man. And I was like – wow. It’s possible to carry on and do it as long as you have it. It was incredible, but what I was most struck by – one of the things I was most struck by at the concert, was in the background. They shot out these images at one point. And they shot out Sonny Rollins – huge images of Sonny Rollins. And Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, behind them as they did this set that was a bit of a blues type set. And then Muddy. So, they were just paying homage to all of these cats who their audience wouldn’t necessarily think would be tied to their music and it was just so cool. I was like so pleased to see that.

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Ron Bennington: I will tell you this though, you brought up something…I guarantee you the best work you’re doing is ahead of you. I guarantee you. Because I’ve been following you for a long time and it just keeps getting stronger.

Jeffrey Wright: Well, I appreciate that. Let’s see.

Ron Bennington: January 18th, “Broken City” is out. Jeffrey Wright, great to see you. I hope you stop by again some time.

Jeffrey Wright: I will do that. Thank you for having me.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3HgYu1atOo]

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