-Welcome back to the show. -Glad to be here.
-Great... -Is Brooklyn in the house?
(applause and cheering)
Great to see you again, and let me start by saying this.
I-I have been in many a movie theatre.
I, uh, have watched many movies, Spike Lee,
and I will tell you this.
I have never experienced what I experienced watching this movie.
I watched this movie in Connecticut this weekend,
and the cinema was completely filled
with old white people, the area I was in.
It was Mystic Lake or something like that, right?
And the movie plays end to end
I think two hours and eight minutes,
and we sit there, and nobody gets up.
Like, credits start rolling. Nobody moves.
And then I stood up, and we're, like, in the middle,
and then, all the white people
around me we just like, "Yeah, yeah. Just..."
(laughter)
And then, like, even when we were walking out,
people were just like, "Yeah. No, you first. You first."
Like, everyone...
It's-it's a... it's a powerful film.
Are you feeling that in the responses you get from people?
I'm feeling it. I'm on Instagram, man.
I got several...
people telling me that they were...
you know, not...
One or two black people in the theatre.
And then, after the film,
when the lights finally go up...
the white people who love the film-- they were...
they were hugging 'em.
They're hugging the black folks in theatres saying,
"I'm sorry. I apologize. I apologize."
I never heard anything like that before in my life.
It's a beautiful film, and just to those
who don't know anything about the story...
BlacKkKlansman
of Ron Stallworth, right?
He's an African-American detective in the 19...
-The first. -In the 1970s. The first?
-First police officer in Colorado Springs. -Right.
And this is a black man who gets into a police department.
And, I mean, from the get-go...
Let's start with that part of the story.
You lay out how difficult it is
to play that-that role
-of being a black man and a police officer. -Mm-hmm.
-And this is in the 1970s... -Yeah.
...but in some ways it feels like it hasn't changed.
Well, what we tried to do was--
even though it takes place in the '70s,
I still wanted it to be contemporary--
so there are many things that my cowriter Kevin Willmott and I,
we put in so people, it would click like, you know,
-Right. -this stuff is still happening today.
And then it-- I know, I'm not trying to spoil anything,
'cause it's out already-- but the ending,
that really hammers home where we are in this world today.
It's a story that connects with you on so many levels.
So, you know, you have Adam Driver's character,
-Right. -who's a policeman
who has for so long passed as "white,"
just plain WASP white, in his neighborhood.
And in the story, Ron Stallworth is a black man
who goes undercover as a Klan member,
which is, I mean, the premise sounds ridiculous.
If you don't tell me that it's based on a true story,
I'd be like, this is the wildest thing from the imagination...
That's what I thought when Jordan Peele called me.
So he says to you, "This is the story," and...
Six words: "Black man infiltrates Ku Klux Klan."
-(laughter) -High concepts!
You can't get more... higher than that.
Right. But the real Ron Stallworth, like, he did this.
And David Duke got bamboozled by him.
-Yep. -And...
(laughter)
-(applause, cheering) -And what I... what I...
You know what, here's the thing, what I found fantastic about it
is, in your film, it illuminates the ludicrous nature of racism,
-because David Duke becomes friends... -It's insane. Right.
with a black man, because he doesn't know
-that he's a black man. -Over the phone.
-Right. Like, and you show... -Mm-hmm.
you show that these, like, it's a human being.
Like, that... maybe that's the biggest thing for me is,
how were you able to make a film where
you seem to approach it with a certain level of empathy
where you don't paint these people as caricatures.
You see different people in the Klan,
you see human beings who are doing
what they believe is right, or what they believe is
their divine, God-given, like...
Like, how do you begin that journey
when creating that character?
It starts with the script.
But... without, I mean,
without Ron's book, I mean, it's all...
that's what makes it insane, that it's... true.
-Right. -So when Jordan Peele said...
I said it sound...
automatically, I thought of a David Chappelle skit.
-Right, right, right. -But he said it's true,
and then I read the book, and it was a great opportunity
for me, even though it took place...
even though the story took place in the '70s,
I still thought it was a great opportunity
to comment on the world we live today
with Agent Orange in the White House.
Let me ask you this.
I don't say his name.
-Shout out to Busta Rhymes, -Let me, let me ask...
that's where I got it from.
Busta. (chuckles)
Let me ask you this, why do you think
a story about the 1970s and the Klan
and a black man on the police force
comments on what's happening today in America?
Because... I don't like to say--
I think one of the mistakes people are making, I feel,
is that they're saying this is just an American phenomenon.
The rise of the right, this is, this is happening globally.
And with this guy in the White House,
he's made it okay for these supremists,
white supremists to come out in the open.
Th-they're coming out from under the rocks,
-and he's legitimized them. -Right.
And I wouldn't even call it a dog whistle,
he's, like, on a bullhorn.
Have you seen anything like this?
I mean, you've been making movies that speak
to what's happening in America for a long time--
have you seen anything like this?
Not in my 61 years on this Earth.
I mean, this-this is, this is...
as they say, this is bananas.
This is insane, it's topsy-turvy.
And, what I-- the one thing I'd like to say to the audience
and to the people watching tonight...
If we don't-- if what has happened the last 18 months,
if that doesn't mobilize us to register to vote,
I don't know what will.
We have to get ready for these midterms,
and after that, he's-he's got to be a one term president.
You know, we we have to...
(cheering and applause)
Because we're going for the flimflam,
the snake oil salesman, and the okeydoke.
And-and another thing, we can't get distracted by these tweets.
That's like a misdirection play in football,
-American football. -Right.
And, uh, we just... we know what's coming,
then we just should, should just, like...
and keep focused what we got to do.
I feel.
That's my opinion, that's what I feel.
(cheering and applause)
When you're making a story
about a black man who becomes the first black police officer
to work in a police force,
you deal with so many issues
that are relatable to what's happening today.
There's a powerful line in the movie where he stumbles upon
an officer who has done something that's bad,
-he's a repeatedly bad offender, -Mm-hmm.
he's killed a black kid in the story,
shot him and claimed that he had a gun.
And one of the other officers, who's a good guy,
says to him, "Well, the reason we haven't outed him
"is because we're a family.
We in the police are a family."
-And... -The blue wall of silence.
Right. And you portray these people
as being well-intentioned
and flawed at the same time.
-Was it important for you... -Those are human beings, though.
Right. Was it important for you to show it in that way where...
'Cause I didn't walk away from the film
going like, "Oh, I hate these police."
But I walked away going like,
"I see the dilemma that these people are facing.
I don't agree with the decision many of them are making, but..."
Was that important to you?
Yes, because as an artist...
Just, well, for myself, I try to be...
tell the truth the best way I can,
the best way I know it.
-And that's something I been doing for 32 years. -Right.
And, well, how do you think you told the truth
when it came to these police officers?
That no one's black or white.
There's-there's shades of gray,
and people do things for different reasons.
And so I really...
What I like to do with my films
is show repercussions
-of decisions people make. -Right.
That's the interesting thing for me.
You go here, you go here,
and there's gonna be a repercussion here,
repercussion this way.
You have a scene in the movie
where Harry Belafonte is on-screen.
-Give it up. -(applause)
And...
-honestly... -91 years old.
honestly one of the most powerful moments in cinema.
He's on the screen,
and you can feel everyone in that cinema.
You can feel the goose bumps as he tells a tale.
Recounting the lynching of Jesse.
-Recounting a lynching. -A real lynching.
Took Jesse Washington, Waco, Texas.
-I think 1915 or '16. -Right.
And this character was his friend
who hid and saw this lynching.
When you're making a movie
and you're telling that story...
how hard is it for you
to not, like, skew the way you tell the story
to make the bad guy seem even badder
than-than they were in the film?
-Like, how do you... -Just-just tell the truth.
And I just like to say--
because I remember it-- that scene,
we shot Mr. B, Harry Belafonte,
was the last day of the shoot.
And so no one knew who was gonna play this role.
I kept it on the low-low.
But I told everybody on the crew,
"When you come to work that day, the last day of the shoot,
wear... suit and tie."
Ladies, we were clean,
-'cause he deserved that. -Right.
We walked on to set, we were sharp.
We had to give him respect.
Freedom fighter. With Dr. King all throughout.
Always-- Freedom fighter.
No, we had to-- we had to give him love.
(applause)
Everybody was dressed to the nines!
Before I let you go, um, the film ends--
and I won't-- I won't spoil the ending of the film for you--
-but the film ends-- -Yeah, go ahead. Peo-- It's been--
Well, I won't-- Not the-- not the ending.
'Cause I-I still want people to enjoy.
Th-There's a magical ending.
It's a beautiful film.
Um, but what happens post-the movie part
is we get thrust into modern day.
We go from the 1970s to 2017.
-We go to a Charlottesville-- -We go to a year ago,
-what happened. A year ago yesterday. -Right.
And, again, I could feel an audience
that was taken from a world of make-believe which was real
to, like, very much what you don't want to believe is real.
Right.
When you were putting that onscreen,
when did you make that decision?
Because this movie, you-you had been creating.
When did you make the decision to put
current-day Charlottesville into a 1970s film about the Klan?
Well, we didn't start shooting till the fall.
So, I was in my summer home in Martha's Vineyard,
and... it hit me just like that.
This has to be the ending.
But... I got Susan Bro's number,
the mother of, uh, Heather Heyer, who was murdered,
and I got her blessing.
So, she gave me the permission to, uh,
-use, uh, her daughter's photo at the end. -Right.
So, that was a year ago yesterday.
She was murdered. And it was nothing but--
Trevor, it was nothing but American,
homegrown act of terrorism,
when that car drove down that crowded street
and-and... and murdered her.
It's-it's-- That's a fact.
And the president of the United States
had a opportunity to tell the world
that we are not for hate.
And he did not denounce the Klan,
the alt-right,
the KKK.
He didn't do it.
And a lot of times, for me, I-I've found, like,
you know, he'll say something and then they pull him
in the back and say, "You got to change it."
Then he says-- You know, he--
But what
that's the truth,
and that's-what's what's in his heart.
(cheering and applause)
I just want to say thank you for making another amazing film.
-Thank you, thank you. -Thank you so much for being
on the show.
BlacKkKlansman
You want to watch this movie. Spike Lee, everybody.