Spike Lee's latest provocation likens the level of gun violence in Chicago to a war zone; Rooney Mara's performance in "Carol" adds to her already impressive list of credits; the beloved "Charlie Brown" holiday special, now in its 50th year, wasn't originally embraced by network executives.
Spike Lee on diversity in Hollywood: 'If you’re not in the room, you don't have a vote'
The latest movie from filmmaker Spike Lee is a poetic satire about the violence that has plagued Chicago’s South Side for decades.
“Chi-Raq," which arrives in theaters on Dec. 4, is very loosely adapted from the ancient Greek play “Lysistrata” by Aristophanes. Even though the playwright lived about 2,500 years ago, his story about how women withheld sex from men to try to end the Peloponnesian War proved oddly relevant to Lee.
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“Chi-Raq,” which is a hybrid of Chicago and Iraq, stars John Cusack as a preacher campaigning against gun violence. The film’s cast includes Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett and Nick Cannon.
Lee came by The Frame studio to talk about why he wanted to tell this story, how he ended up picking Chicago for this story, and what has to be done to increase diversity in Hollywood's corner offices.
Interview Highlights:
Why did you decide to set this film in Chicago?
Chicago is the mass murder capital of the U.S.A. New York City is three times the population of Chicago and Chicago has more homicides than New York and L.A. — not combined, but separate ... And there’s a reason why the local rappers from Chicago coined the term Chi-Raq.
The other credited screenwriter in this film is Aristophenes, who wrote a play about a woman named Lysistrata and she did something that was way ahead of her time.
Well, it worked. Aristophenes wrote this play in 411 B.C. The lead character, Lysistrata, is tired of the wars, so she comes up with this strategy — genius — that women should withhold sex until these wars stop. Most recently, a woman named Sister Leymah won a Nobel Peace Prize for that tactic, which stopped the second civil war in Liberia.
The film ends with a call to wake up. This is about the only way that these women can get to these men and get them to start paying attention to what they’re doing and who they’ve become. Is that the point?
Yes, but I think there’s also another element that I think people come out of the theater thinking about, which is the problem of guns in this country. That is a big part of the story. I’m not talking about taking anybody’s 2nd Amendment right away, but ... let’s have stronger legislation. Let’s have more vigilant background checks. Let’s start [issuing titles for] guns like cars. There’s no reason why somebody should be able to walk into a gun store or a gun show and come out with an assault weapon with a fake I.D.
Here’s the thing: Chicago has a very tough gun law in the city. So does New York. But the neighboring states are lacking. People get in the car in Chicago, 30 minutes later they’re in Indiana. In New York, [you find] guns from Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina. So, if we don’t have a uniform law about gun control, that defeats the purpose. We gotta do something about the guns.
We’ve talked about this a lot on our show, how hard it is for women and people of color to get jobs in Hollywood. If we visited your movie set, what would we see in your crew and among your department heads? How intentional are you about making sure your movie set looks like the rest of the country?
Things like that don’t happen by accident. People don’t just show up on a movie set. You get hired. So diversity has been a staple of my sets since 1986.
What do you think about that word, diversity?
I think it’s a great word. To go back to a sentence of my speech that the New York Times got wrong: I said, "The United States Census Bureau says, by early as the year 2043, white Americans will be the minority." The Times reported, “Spike Lee says...” They left it out. That’s not a mistake. You cannot leave out that I [credited] the United States Census Bureau. That’s a big, big deletion. And that was done on purpose.
For what purpose, do you think? To make you the firebrand?
No, to make it seem like I’m pulling that stat out of my ass. It’s not what I think; it’s what the U.S. Census Bureau has said in a report. Big difference! Journalism shenanigans.
But it’s also Hollywood shenanigans. We live in an era where the country is increasingly diverse, and yet with women, people of color — I mean the EEOC right now is investigating how Hollywood hires and doesn’t hire women. Should they do the same for people of color?
They should start. The thing I said that probably got picked at the most [was] it’s easier for an African-American person to be president of the United States of America than president of a Hollywood studio or network.
What happens next? There’s a lot of talk about diversity ... there hasn’t been a lot of action. Let’s dream and say that Hollywood becomes a mirror of the nation. What is the content? What are the creative stories?
There will be a lot of different stories. It’s going to open them up. But the thing I wrote down in my book, is it’s not just us being the presidents of a Hollywood studio or network. We’ve also got to be in a position where we have some green light votes. And this is how you decide – this is the process that decides what we’re making and what we’re not making.
Does Hollywood need the Rooney Rule, which is when you’re hiring a new coach in the NFL, you [have] to interview somebody who’s not a white guy?
But how are you going to enforce that? I don’t know how you can do that. The NFL is a league. That’s one entity. Hollywood is different entities. But I’ll say this: [in] the great, great play, “Hamilton,” on Broadway ... there’s a song in that magnificent play, sung by Leslie Odom Jr. The title is, “I Wanna Be In The Room When It Happens.” We’re not in the room! [laughs] If you’re not in the room, you don't have a vote, and if you’re not in the room, everything else doesn’t matter.
Here’s the thing: We get tricked into thinking that because there are numerous African-American giant stars — Denzel, there’s [Oprah] Winfrey, Samuel Jackson — who’s made more money than anybody, ever — Will Smith, Halle Berry. But they’re not running stuff. They don’t have a vote.
They’re not making the phone calls; they’re waiting for the phone to ring.
Yes. They’re not part of the institution that decides what gets made and what doesn’t. Of course, a big star can do whatever they want — for a period. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people that have green light votes at Hollywood studios and network broadcast television.
Rooney Mara initially said no to appearing in 'Carol'
Actress Rooney Mara has been a professional actress for only a decade, but she has accomplished more than most of her peers in those few years.
Mara has worked with some of the best directors in Hollywood, including David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh and Spike Jonze. Rooney also received a 2011 Academy Award best actress nomination for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” And she won the Best Actress award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her work in “Carol.”
The film, directed by Todd Haynes and based on “The Price of Salt,” a novel by Patricia Highsmith, is set in the 1950’s. Mara’s character — Therese Belivet — is a department store clerk who falls in love with an older, married woman named Carol, who is played by Cate Blanchett.
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Rooney Mara at the Telluride Film Festival — right before she received a career tribute at the festival — and asked her when she first realized she had a talent for acting, what attracts her to a role, and why she initially said no to appearing in "Carol."
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Do you remember the first time you realized you were good at acting?
I didn't really think I was good at anything growing up, and I tried everything. I basically went through every single thing: I did dance, acting, piano, guitar. I didn't stick with anything because I didn't think I was good at anything ... so I didn't stick with anything long enough to really find out if I could be good at it. I think a lot of that has to do with my shyness growing up. I had a lot of fear about not being good at stuff, so I would just quit.
So what changed?
In first grade I had to write this little book and the teacher told me I should be a writer. aAnd there was a brief moment where I thought, Oh, maybe I'm good at writing. Maybe I should be a writer.
Do you think you're really good at acting now?
I think I'm good at it, but mostly when I watch myself I can pick up all the stuff that I don't like about it. I always think it could be better. I'm definitely my biggest critic.
How do you get better as an actor? If you're a figure skater, you have a coach and you're out skating everyday. As an actor, is it about reading? Watching other people acting? Listening to music? Being your own worst critic?
I don't know. I wish there was an answer to that. I feel like it's different for everyone and I feel like some people, as they get older, they get worse because they become more self-aware and more aware about things they don't like about themselves or the things that work for them. I just feel like you kind of have to be authentic and in the moment of whatever it is you're doing, and for me, the thing that helps me the most is living life.
If I work back-to-back-to-back, I have nothing left in me to give to the parts that I'm playing or the directors I'm working with. I made a really conscious decision when I was young not to be a child actor. My sister started acting professionally pretty young and that was definitely an option for me if I wanted to pursue that. And I kind of knew very young — like 11 or 12 — [that] I wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. I don't want to grow up on screen and I want to go to school, I want to go to college, I want to have an education and then I want to act.
I don't know how I knew that at such a young age, but I just feel like the more life experience you have, the better actor you can be because what we're doing is just imitating life. So if you haven't had life experience, how can you do it?
Does that explain why you've only made around five movies in the last five years? Is it because you want to have those life experiences before you take on a role? Or is it a combination of not having parts come your way that you feel a hundred percent committed to?
It's kind of all based on my moods. I'm a very moody person. So after "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," which was a year solid of shooting and then six months of press, it was a lot of work and I gave everything I had to it.
I didn't work for a pretty long time after that and "Carol" was offered to me right after. And I said no to it. I said, "I won't be good in this. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to play this part." And it's just that I felt like I didn't have anything left to give. So I kind of have this weird pattern where I'll do three movies in a row and then I'll take a year off. You know, it's kind of just based on how I'm feeling in life, I guess.
So what changed from saying no to "Carol" to saying yes?
I hadn't worked in over a year and ... most of the parts that I was reading were the girlfriend or parts that I didn't want to dive into. It wasn't that I read "Carol" the first time and didn't like it. I loved the script and working with Cate [Blanchett] is a life-long dream since I was 13 years old and saw her in "Elizabeth." I must have been feeling really bad about myself to have passed it up the first time. Then the second time I knew I couldn't pass it up.
How do judge the quality of your own performance? "Carol" is getting incredible critical recognition. You won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. How do you measure whether or not you are doing your job well? Are there outside validations that you look for?
Of course, everyone looks for outside validation but I don't necessarily always trust it. You always look for that one bad thing someone has to say and you're like, Yup, they're right. It's really easy to just be like, No one knows what they're talking about. People have bad taste. And then you glom on to that one really nasty thing someone said about you. So I don't really know what the answer to that is. I usually can watch myself a few years later and have more perspective on it and be a little kinder to myself. But I don't think I'm capable of judging right after I've done it.
"Carol" is currently in theaters.