- Just like I always say, "Dolomite is my name
"and rappin' and tappin' is my game".
Yes, I'm young and free and just as bad
as I wanna be.
I'm Krista Smith, host of the Corner Booth
and I'm sitting here with Ruth Carter
the costume designer of Dolomite
as well as the screenwriters Larry Karaszewski
and Scott Alexander.
(smooth funk music)
So, I wanna know how much fun it was to work on this project
and also to collaborate because the costumes
are such a part of this story and this movie
and all the actors were talking about it.
For Ruth, do you guys coordinate when you talk about
what your doing like, how does your process start?
- When I came on the project
I really wanted to be impressive
and do a deep dive into Rudy Ray Moore's filmography
and all of his costumes that he had in Dolemite
and really, get it right and so I did a lot of sketches--
- And huge respect for her,
but when we went to this first meeting and met you
and you pulled out those sketches, it was just so amazing
that the homework she had done.
- They kept laughing at things, and pointing at things
and I was like OK, got it, you got it right.
- And also I gotta give her props
in that it's so easy to do this time period as a joke.
We've all seen that 70's thing--
- It gets shticky.
- It gets shticky, oh they're wearing platform shoes
and they're doing this, and it becomes a comical thing.
She managed to make Rudy Ray Moore,
the more outrageous costumes
but they feel lived in.
They feel real,
they feel like human beings wore them.
- [Ruth] Yeah, and that was part of the goal, you know
was to create a 70's that I remembered.
And also I didn't want the costumes to become a joke.
I wanted the actors to portray these characters
and be funny and feel like they looked good, you know.
It also was important, I feel in honoring Rudy Ray Moore
too, because he crafted his look you know,
in so many details.
So it was important to do that, you know, do it right
and not make it look like a version of...
- And it's a unique situation 'cause you're
actually doing the making of the movie so they
have to have the same costumes
that they had in the actual film.
- [Ruth] Absolutely.
- [Scott] Yeah, I mean I remember we had interesting
conversations with you and Craig about when Rudy's
going for a meeting, is he as Rudy, is he as Dolemite
or is he somewhere in between--
- in between, and so we teeter-tot back and forth
between Rudy Ray Moore sometimes, and then as Dolemite.
- Right, you know it's more like he's, when he's
going into an office and try to impress somebody
he gets in the Dolemite outfit.
- [Ruth] Yes.
- He puts a costume on because he's selling something.
- [Scott] I remember--
We were on the set the day
they go to Dimension Pictures
and we saw the group of them
crossing that street
and walking in that lobby.
People were like holding
their mouths not to laugh.
- [Ruth] Yeah, it was great, it was a great day for me too!
- [Scott] It was so amazing!
- [Ruth] You know we worked so hard crafting each person
individually and different sort of elements--
- To see all of them in presentation mode.
- They, come together,
that was one of my favorite cinematic moments.
- The only reason y'all is here is to make me look
like I'm a legitimate organization.
- And so you guys met in college, you were at USC.
- We were freshman roommates in a dorm at USC.
- How did you get this point of collaborating on Dolemite?
- We make biopics for people who don't,
you know, usually get a biopic.
You know, we've done a number of them and one particular
one is called Ed Wood.
And Eddie Murphy was a gigantic fan of Ed Wood,
and we got a call one day
saying Eddie would like to meet you
and this was like 12 years ago, and then Eddie
just like looked at us and says, "Do you guys know
"who Rudy Ray Moore is?".
We're like, yes!
We totally, we worship Rudy Ray Moore.
When we were in college--
- The trailer to Human Tornado, we would just watch
over and over and over.
It's the best three minutes of all time.
- What are you think is part of the success
of your partnership, what works so well
for you guys still to be friendly
and still to be collaborating together at such a high level?
- When we're writing about someone who we really enjoy
the writing comes really easy and then we have a lot
of fun, not to like, blow smoke up Rudy's ass
but we really had fun writing this movie
and we just wanted to make it as good as possible.
- And we love writing about characters
who are extremely passionate about what they're doing.
And that's certainly Rudy Ray Moore.
- Yeah.
- I found this so inspiring, I mean, I didn't know
anything about Rudy Ray Moore, I didn't know about Dolemite.
So, I learned so much, it was really that evergreen
like the dream, the American dream about this guy against
all odds, he refused to loose.
- [Larry] Right.
- [Scott] No one gives him a break in the film.
No one ever says, "okay, I'll help you out".
- And what's interesting is, at the time you know
Rudy Ray's movies were like, almost below blaxsploitation.
I mean, it wasn't done by a major studio
and it wasn't even in American or international pictures.
So, there was sort of a second rung.
- Maybe not as mainstream.
- [Larry] Right, right, right.
- Not as mainstream.
- [Ruth] Yeah, and you know Dolemite was unique,
definitely was unique and so there's the 70's
which we address, and then there's Dolemite in the 70's.
You know we had to, you know, up the ante there a little.
- I'm Rudy's protege.
- Ah!
- Yeah, I think I'm what they call in Hollywood
um, a en je neau?
- [Krista] I also love what you guys
did with the character of Lady Reed,
and I wanna talk about her costumes,
it added, it was a whole other layer I felt, her wardrobe--
- You know Lady Reed had a certain persona about her
she was definitely powerful and in charge,
and she had her look from head to toe,
and it was as curated as Dolemite's.
So, it was important that I give our Lady Reed
divine joy, that same direction
in terms of her having her look defined
for her performances and she was just
like, you know, "do what you do, Ruth".
- What was the hardest part for you guys in writing
this script to crack.
- We lied to Netflix, because we told them we were
gonna do all of Rudy's movies,
and then when we got
into the writing we fell in love with the records
and the Chitlin' Circuit.
And we started realizing, this is stuff we've never
seen in any movie and this is so cool,
and this is a world that people don't know.
We kept kinda, pushing back the making of Dolemite
and a certain point we realized,
"oh my god, we're not gonna get on Dolemite
"until it's the second half of the movie".
And so then we kind of,
on the fly had to kinda rethink
what we were doing and then basically everything
that we wanted to say about Reed's filmmaking
put into the Dolemite section.
- Really, we don't know all that technical stuff
like lights, and sound, and camera, we don't know that.
- Of course.
- All right, hey lemme show you Dolemite Studio.
- [Larry] And also I think one of the real hard things
about writing the project was actually getting
someone to make it.
So when we met with Eddie 12 years ago, and then we met
with the real Rudy Ray Moore,
- Oh, right.
- He was alive then and we interviewed him
and we talked about his life
and we told him we were going to make a movie about him.
And then we couldn't set it up, because you know,
the regular studios weren't that interested in making
a Rudy Ray Moore movie.
And then finally we did the People versus O.J. Simpson.
People were coming to us and we sort of felt like we had
an opportunity, sort of like, go recapture like, a dream
project from the past and through the producer John Davis
we recontacted Eddie,
- And John Fox
- And John Fox, and said "Eddie, are you still interested
in doing Rudy?" and he's like, "yes, yes".
And so we brought it to Netflix and it all happened
pretty quickly after that, it was a twelve year journey.
- It's amazing the life of projects,
it's like twelve years,
and I'm so glad you guys stuck with it, actually.
- You just have to, just keep pushing the rocks up the hill.
- [Larry] Yeah.
- [Krista] Yeah.
- Like crazy people.