He's a true American hero.
You know, and how this piece of history,
sort of, slipped through the cracks,
I mean, I went to a historically Black college,
learned a lot about my culture. I can't
believe I've never heard about this.
I don't feel like a celebrity.
I don't feel, I was a hero
or am a hero.
I don't feel what I did was heroic.
I appreciate the honor.
It is very appreciated but
I don't feel that way.
I had a job to do
and I did my job. I came to work every day,
I scanned the newspapers,
I looked for stuff that might be of
interest on this particular day
something jumped out at me
and I responded to it.
There was nothing heroic about it.
It was just a job.
You
kept your community safe though, from these people, these animals, right.
But that too was my job,
stop picking on me.
Ok, just had to say that, but you're right.
All this information is on the card that you see
in the film.
They duplicated it exactly.
I didn't wanna try to emulate
or imitate. I wanted to inhabit his spirit
and it was something about the exchange of the card,
when he showed that membership card,
remember, at the table
read. That sorta was like the
portal to his soul
and he let me have it for a couple
months and I really appreciated that.
Literally trying to not laugh
at the fact that they were being made
fools of in such a fairly
easy way and not recognizing
the fact that they were dealing
with two different people.
The real Chuck,
in the movie is Flip Zimmerman
but thereal Chuck, his voice is
totally distinctively different than mine.
Anybody should have recognized they were talking
to two different people
and just that alone was,
was a laugh.
But talking on
the phone pretending to be a white supremacist
with my sergeant sitting there listening
he's fallin' out of his chair laughing,
and gagging 'cause
he couldn't catch his breath,
turning red in the face,
running out of the office to compose himself.
I really hate those black rats
and anyone else really that doesn't have pure
white aryan blood running through their veins.
I'm happy to be talking to true white American.
God bless white America.
This whole thing was like a 'Saturday Night Live' skit
but it had very serious overtones
to it because these guys believed
in the ideology of white
supremacy.
Groups like the Klan are always dangerous.
They will preach non-violence
but their actions betray them.
And when I was talking on the phone to
these knuckleheads in my investigation
they were talking about
committing violent acts.
And yet they were telling each other
the Klan is not violent we are the new Klan.
We don't believe in violence.
They even invoked Martin Luther King's Day
and we like Martin Luther
King we believe in
non-violent protest.
But if we're confronted by
people that look like the two of us
then they will resort to violence.
People are basically good
but you will always have that small
percentage that fall into the category
of these Klansmen
and other white supremacists.
So what I took away from this is that you
have to be willing to confront racism
head on.
You have to be willing to tackle the
issue of white
supremacy,
white dominance
in America. And in other parts
of the country,
you have to be willing to tackle that
and take a stand
and do what you can to stamp it out.
You're not gonna eliminate it
but you can't control it.
You can't keep it in the shadows,
you can't keep it underground
and not allow it to come seep forth
like it has happened since a
certain gentleman took control of the White House.
We have to be willing to
unite
and address this problem wherever it,
wherever it rears its ugly head.
Every time we move forward we seem to have
fall into a period where we take two
steps back.
Right now, we're in that two-steps-back period.
During the eight years of Obama,
there were not marches openly
expressed like we saw in Charlottesville going
on around the country
with the alt-right. These guys were there,
but they were
probably at surface level beneath the surface
just a tad bit
but they were openly out
and marching and creating havoc like
we saw in Charlottesville during the 8 years
of Obama.
We had a moral conscience in the White House who
was expressing his contempt
as the leader of this nation.
He was expressing his contempt for actions
like that.
There were a lot of racist incidents that went on
during the Obama years
but they were in open display to
the extent that we saw in Charlotte.
In comes the idiot
imbecile that occupies the White House now
and he
gives his wink and a nod
and his statement that Charlottesville about
equivalency on both sides.
You had a group on one side that was bad
and you had a group on the other side that was also
very violent.
There was no equivalency.
You cannot equate a white
supremacist to peaceful marchers,
no matter whether you agree
with the marchers
or not
or agree with the peaceful protest
or not. You cannot equate them
with these guys walking around
with Tiki torches which was nothing
more than a symbolic
cross burning
and yelling Jews will not replace us.
So when you have that
lack of a moral conscience
things like this are going to erupt to the surface
much greater than they ever have been.
And that's what we have going on right now.
We're in that cycle
and hopefully that cycle will end
when that idiot is gone.
And I won't say how I want him gone,
just I want him gone.
But hopefully it will end.
But right now we have to endure.
And that's why I say,
we as a community of people,
concerned people,
need to unite and be willing to stand
up to this and fight against it as
opposed to sitting idly by
and letting it go on beside us because we are ashamed
or afraid to talk about race.
We need to stop being ashamed
and afraid.
Language that's used in this film.
I mean it's,
it's harsh.
But it's meaningful.
It's not for shock value
or to try to
manipulate the film to be more entertaining.
No, this is, this is the language that was
used then, in real life,
and this is how it's used right now,
in today's world.
So at least people can start seeing,
like man...I was watching it in
France I felt embarrassed of
my country.
You know, and this is a period piece.
You know, I wasn't even alive then
and I'm like,
I'm embarrassed for my country.
So hopefully to that point,
I bring that up to say hopefully
we can hear how we sound
and how we feel.
And we can,
sort of, at least, all we need, all we need is one
person off of this film,
that sees this film that'll be inspired to change
that, you know, and that's what I'm...
I'm in the service business.
You know, I was there to service the film
and to hopefully inspire others the way this real American
hero inspired me to even take
this role on. Period.