I am a revolutionary!
What's happening, Trevor, man? What's going on?
You can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill a revolution.
-Yeah. -And that's... Can I tell you something, Daniel Kaluuya?
That is my favorite... Let me tell you something, man.
It's been a while since I watched a movie.
Man, kudos to everyone. Kudos to yourself.
Kudos to LaKeith. Kudos to Shaka King.
This... This is... Yeah, man.
I... If I had the Oscars at my house,
I would just give them to you now.
-(laughs) -You don't need to go to the awards.
We just take the Oscars, we give them to you now,
and you go home and you do whatever you want with them.
How are you doing, my dude?
I'm going through it, bro. This-this press run... (laughs)
Speak about this. No, I'm good. I'm good, I'm good.
You know when you did something that you're proud of?
-Yeah. -You know, everyone put everything into that.
Everyone put everything into that,
so I'm feeling good, man. How are you?
-I like your hair, man. -Thank you very much, man.
I'm-I'm ready to join the Black Panther party.
-That's what I'm ready to do right now. -Hey, bro.
I can see you on the front line with that hairstyle, brother.
(both laugh)
Feed some kids in the breakfast program right now
with that hairstyle right there.
Oh, man, this movie... I-I... You-you must be tired, man.
You must be running around doing press,
because everybody should want to speak to you about this film,
Judas and the Black Messiah.
Like, look, Daniel, you've known for a long time
I'm one of your biggest fans, but there...
You know, there are things that... You know,
even if you love Lionel Messi,
there's still a goal that he'll score
where you're like, "How did he do that?"
Even if you love Ronaldo, he'll do, like,
a kick where you're like, "How did he do that?"
That's what I feel like you do with your acting,
is I know how you act. I love how you act.
Whether it's Queen & Slim, you know, whether it's Get Out,
it doesn't matter what it is.
But in this film, in Judas and the Black Messiah,
we see a side of not just the Black Panther party
but Fred Hampton that I think many people
wouldn't know about in American history.
Tell me a little about the story and why Daniel Kaluuya decided,
"Nah, I-I think I can bring this person to life
in a way that a lot of people haven't seen before."
Yes, um... Yeah, do you know, Chairman Fred,
uh, he was a man of the people, you know?
He was, uh, in Chicago,
and he became chairman of the Illinois chapter
of the Black Panther party.
And it-it-it...
Ryan and Zinzi Coogler actually pulled me to the side
on the Black Panther reshoots and asked me to be a part of it.
And when I... I just felt honored.
I just felt honored that they even saw me in that way.
You know? It kind of is something that came to me.
They saw it before I saw it.
And, um, and, uh... And then, yeah,
I just read the script, and I was just like...
You know,
there's a lot of information about how he died,
but there's not a lot of information
about how remarkably he lived.
-Right. -You know? That's what it is.
It's just like, "Wow. This-this guy lived incredibly."
-You know what I'm saying? -Right.
He knew things on a deep, deep, deep level,
-and not only knew them, executed them. -Right.
It's the knowledge, and he had original thoughts,
and then he-he did something about it in a way
that was digestible to people that were like him.
You know, it's, like, there's so much that has to happen there.
-And he was 20, 21 for this? -Right.
You know, it's like he was just...
I say he's like a brilliant mind and a brilliant heart.
So for that, it's kind of like, you know...
It's kind of like a way to serve something that...
that was... that was articulating stuff
that you believed, but also,
it's that kind of like, it was...
Learning about chairman Fred allowed me
-to grow as a man, you know? -I can only imagine.
So, I look at my preconceptions, look at my fears
and hang-ups that I had, and kind of grow
in order to kind of occupy his words, you know?
I think "preconceptions" is the perfect word,
because the stories that we've been told
about so many historical figures are told by the people
who oftentimes either ended their lives prematurely,
or didn't want them to free the people they were trying to free.
I mean, Nelson Mandela was labeled as a terrorist.
You know? Mahatma Gandhi was persona non grata
with the British.
Um, Fred Hampton was no different.
And what I love about this story is,
it doesn't show us a simplistic view
of the Black Panther Party or Fred Hampton.
It shows us a holistic view.
In this film, though, we go,
these are human beings fighting for their rights.
And what I loved was how the story talks
about how the Black Panther Party built a coalition
of Black, white and Hispanic to fight against oppression.
Yeah, yeah, that was... that was the scariest thing
to the powers that be, you know,
is that Chairman Fred had the, uh, the knowledge,
the clarity, and the ability to kind of see people
from different communities and understand
that they were... they were more aligned than people would think,
especially people that they had conflicts with,
like the Young Patriots, you know?
There's a scene in the film where we go in there,
-and we're greeted with the Confederate flag. -Right.
You know, and even in conflict, Chairman Fred
and the Black Panther Party found points of interest.
You know? But not in sacrifice
of their love of Blackness and love of the Black community.
-Right. -'Cause now we live in a day and age, if you join
with someone that isn't aligned with you,
you feel like you're selling out,
you're compromising yourself.
That thought wasn't even in their mind. They were...
It was all to bolster their love for the community.
But they saw that, um, uh, there were...
It was better in solidarity
than in fragmentation, you know?
I would love to know from your side as Daniel,
how did you begin to embody Fred the way that you did?
Like, what did you look for in him
that helped you bring him to life in this movie?
You know what it is, Trevor. I kind of...
I was in a space where I would watch his speeches,
and be aware of how I was feeling as a result of it.
You know what I'm saying? And going, how I was feeling,
mood and-and... and that. So then, I was like,
"Oh, my goal is to occupy his spiritual space, that position."
-Hmm. -And go, "I want to move the audience in the way
that he is moving me at this moment."
You know, and I don't really know the words
for that feeling that I felt, but I knew I felt it.
And I said... I knew I was able to occupy it.
And I was like, "All right, cool, let me just go there
and let me have that as my aspiration in terms of this."
And that's kind of... it's kind of like
you're a vessel in those situations.
In certain scenes by saying his actual words.
And you can't help but let the words tell you how to play it,
let the words tell you how to be.
The voice. Talk me through the voice
and how-how important that was.
'Cause I feel like Get Out was all about the eyes.
You know, you-you made those eyes come alive.
It felt like that was the whole story.
And it felt like in this, a lot of Fred is that voice.
Yeah, it was. The voice was everything,
um, in-in approaching it, so then I was...
When I started dialect work with Audrey LeCrone,
an amazing dialect coach,
it was a real... kind of real challenge and...
Also, another thing was, well, I had to really watch my voice
because I'm not, um, classically trained.
Well, how I arrived to acting
-was a very raw, improv way. -Yeah.
And I had a tendency when I did plays, to kind of just go "Aah!"
And just lead with emotion, but damage my voice.
And I knew on this one, I couldn't afford to.
You know what I'm saying?
Because you're doing 12-hour days
with just doing speeches.
So, Audrey said, "Yo, you should look into a singing coach."
-So I found an opera singing coach. -Wow.
Met with an opera singing coach, and then, um... and then...
Because I just... I love the way
-opera singers commanded the space. -Uh-huh.
And a call. Sonically, Chairman Fred felt like that.
-Yeah. -You know? How he occupied a room.
You know, he just occupied it.
And, um... and because of the amount I was doing,
I needed to engage with my diaphragm
and condition my vocal chords
for those kind of days, and so, I would do gospel songs,
and I would do songs that felt like Chairman Fred's speeches.
Then I'll do the speeches. And then, I would study in cadence.
'Cause he had a different cadence to when he spoke
to a different cadence to when he did speeches.
-Right. Right. -And so, I'm identifying
and defining those differences, but also, feeling
-like the same person. -Uh-uh.
It's kind of like, it was a... There was a kind of...
But, also, for me, what was his speech patterns
was, like, a clue into his thought patterns.
Having spent all this time embodying the man,
researching him, living in him,
you know, recreating that history,
what do you think some of the misconceptions are
that people have about Fred Hampton
that you've learned about him,
and-and maybe has changed in your mind, as well,
since taking on this role?
I was blessed enough that I didn't have any preconceptions
about, um, him, you know?
And I didn't have any preconceptions
about the Black Panther Party.
I just understood that other people, in order for...
-You know, like the white fear dressed as hate. -Right, right.
In order for it to get manifested, it's like,
"These people are, like, killing us.
They're terrorists. They're like the Ku Klux Klan."
You know, and it's that kind of thing where, like,
actually, I thought, like, these people, like, had incredible,
uncompromising love for themselves.
And they would... they would guard themselves with guns
and then guard their community with guns, because...
because you're trying to kill us.
You know, it's like if you don't protect your family...
Like, say there's... someone... a burglar comes into your house,
and you don't protect your family.
What are you saying about yourself?
And what are you saying about how you feel about your family?
You know, everyone understands that scenario.
But I think the Black community within America,
there's a lot happening.
There's these people that are occupying their spaces
and oppressing these people,
and Black people around the world, you know.
-Right, right. -Oppressing Black people.
If you don't stand up for yourself, it doesn't make sense.
It makes sense to protect yourself.
But it's not only do they protect themselves.
-They loved themselves, bought into themselves. -Mm, mm.
You know? And the protection was just a manifestation
of a form of love, you know?
One-One thing that really stood out to me in this film was
realizing how people are connected
around the globe without even realizing it.
And when you watch the story of the Black Panthers,
they were an international organization.
They were here, you know, and they were trying to expand
in the U.S., but they comm... they talked to people
from different places around the world and said,
"You share a struggle that we share,
and we want to do this together."
How do you think that has factored into, like,
how you play these roles and what you think about it?
You know, when you look
at that shared experience around the globe...
'Cause some people might be like,
"Ah, Daniel Kaluuya, you come from England.
You drink tea all day, and you have a good life."
But sometimes, there's a disconnect,
and I feel like the Black Panthers understood that.
They would connect with Black from other places to be like,
"Yo, we are all Black,
"and we are all experiencing this oppression
in a similar, and yet different way."
I think... I think Chairman Fred, especially, understood
-it was an international struggle, you know? -Mm-hmm.
And you see in the first speech that he references
the Mozambique and Frelimo fighters, you know?
-Right, right, -He references the struggles in Angola.
You know, it's like, he under... He's connecting the dots.
You know, when I was like, um,
his points of references were, like, Jomo Kenyatta.
You know, it's like... and you can go on that kind of...
rabbit hole and go down there and find out all the stuff
that's happening there in-in terms of how to...
battle what's happening here and what, um,
-sometimes what pitfalls to look out for, you know? -Right.
Instead of overthrowing, actually you're just replacing
what was there with a, with a black face.
-Do you know what I'm saying? -Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
It's... and he said the issue is capitalism.
-You know? And-and so... -Yes, yes.
it's understanding, understanding not... he-he...
they saw it as a bigger, as a macro point of view, you know?
-Right. -And they saw it as, like, they saw it as...
this is a Western construct that's kind of--
a Western virus, it's like, you know, it's like a pandemic,
you know, um, what's, what's, what's happened to Black people
and the oppression of Black people from white fear
and white anxiety.
I hope that everyone sees the film.
And then I hope that everyone who's voting sees the film,
as well, because it deserves every award-award possible.
Thank you for creating it, thank you being here.
I love seeing you again, my friend.
Love, man. Appreciate you, my bro.