Hey, John. How's it going?
I'm good, man. How are you?
Yeah, not too bad.
Thank you very much. Nice to talk to you on a Friday night.
It's a bit different on a Friday night.
You know?
Yeah.
I don't go out these days.
I'm too old and old for that.
Just don't blame me, You know? You can still go out.
That's a personal choice, man.
My choice tonight was talking to you or playing FIFA
Now, that's my choice for Friday night.
Congratulations on this film.
Thank you.
I saw this as part of Sundance last year, so it's been a while
since I've seen it, but it did.
It's quite quite a mark in my in my memory for so many reasons.
But first of all, congratulations on it.
And second of all, we're talking about a film this far down the line,
because I know that you're not in charge of distribution, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. No, no, I'm not.
But as an Executive Producer I know exactly how.
So, yeah, you know, we
we've a changing industry and a changing market, especially after COVID
in a company to try to do
is as much as the industry was doing prior to that.
You do expect that the release of a film and distribution
across territories will differ.
So this is how it goes.
Yeah, it's such a great platform though, Sundance, because I remember seeing it
Yeah, Breaking is my second film at Sundance as well,
so I love Sundance as well.
Did you manage managed to get out there for Sundance for
when it when it premiered? Because it was. No.
I wasn't, I guess sometimes, Yeah.
So it was all the actual experience stuff, you know?
Yeah.
So I mean, we've seen a few films like this before, but this one,
there's a real kind of rawness to it, and it's obviously based on a true story.
So what was the, what was your entry point?
Was it, was it Abi Damaris Corbin that first came to you with the with the script, or had
you known about it beforehand, What was it that kind of.
No, I had no idea about the story.
It was Kwame Kwei-Armah He sent the script to Femi, my agent.
Femi normally is, you know,
works as a system with other writers as my filter.
Sometimes they do like a review of it and tell me what they think of it,
and I'll read it based on the synopsis and a breakdown
that got back to me and I said, Yeah, I want to read this straight up.
I read it blown away by it, and then the rest is history.
I was like, you know, Abi sign me up.
I really liked Abi's vision.
I liked that their writing, how evtertaining was like
the opportunity they had for me and doing something more different and nuanced
and you know, challenging and artistically,
you know, it's just playing a complete transformation of the character.
So it was. It was real cool.
Yeah.
How much enjoyment did you get as an actor?
Because, you know, you do certain things and you've obviously done this
big in movies and anything else.
When you do something about this,
there's a kind of purity about story and acting, all that kind of stuff.
It felt.
I would imagine
it takes a lot boxes in that sense for you to do something different every.
But yes, it was brilliant. It was brilliant.
It was brilliant to do something different.
I'm really because I came up in theater.
In theater, you know, you're given freedom to play a variety of roles
and in theater, to
bring yourself to the
characters isn't as emphasized as it is in film.
And so I like the fact that I could lean more into that.
I'd just detach from John Boyega now, where people watch the screen, they go to
Bloody hell is that?
And I like that it's kind of disappeared.
Did it feel like theatre, because for a lot of the film
you're in that one location and the space and everything else.
I can imagine that's a really unique energy and always semi hard
to find scripts in film that allow you to do that and step back into that arena.
And yeah, of them definitely, definitely felt like theater.
There was a freedom and a fluidity that we're able to have on set as well.
Thankfully, you know, for a good cinematographer
as well, as well as Abi, you know,
we're able to just kind of move and own the space as if we were on stage,
which made it like a feel film experience to me.
Yeah.
How much did you know of the story beforehand?
Because there's this there's so many stories
that bleed out about veterans and how they're treated post,
you know, given their like, you know, some instances,
given their lives for that, for their country
and they come back and find it so hard to adjust to normality.
And there's a real kind of disconnect
between people that have normal lives and people that have have this.
And it feels like with this character, basically
he's he's just trying to do the right thing.
He feels like this, you know, he's trying to get his life back, back on track.
And as a rule, as I said before, we're purity to this to this guy.
Did you feel that that even though he might be painted
as a bad guy, that he's actually not he's actually trying to do right by his family
and trying to do right by what he believes that he's given to his country?
Yeah, I think, you know, yeah.
You know, we live in a world
where it's easy to have generic judgment on situations.
I mean, it feels easy.
Feels like, Yep.
So it's kind of putting the rubbish underneath the bad way looks guilty.
But when you go into the details, you know, it's not that simple for me.
It's just I have much more of a nuanced response to to Brian Brown-Easley.
You know, I kind of think about what makes a man night, what kind of frustrations,
what kind of the lack of help, you know, the lack of empathy.
What does that what does that do and how did that play a part
in the decisions that he that he made and then empathy to the bank tellers.
Then in that scenario, how were they able to?
Because they have to almost accept trauma themselves,
something that they will never, ever forget.
You know, how how how are they dealing with that also?
And then systematically, you know, how do they feel?
Yeah.
And they talk about what's talked about a lot about, you know, mental health.
And like you say, the way that when people come out of that experience,
they are a changed person and it's very hard for them to.
Yeah, just and I thought the film did such a great job at trying to just show
us exactly the mentality because I mean, the mentality from someone
who wants to be a hero
or wants to serve their country, to someone who is struggling
to just get X amount of dollars to not even live their life.
It's so it's a hard thing.
But this film so so
yeah, I mean, I mean, I guess testament to Abi
I guess in terms of the script and everything else, you know,
definitely.
I think the script blew me away, but you know, where you could read the script
and you're, you see the vision straight up, especially after the first read.
That's where I get really, really excited when I already know
the story back to front.
I've got kind of got to gauge the character's journey.
I know what or why they've come to me specifically for the role
and what they want me to bring to it.
It just really me.
The stars aligned on that one. Yeah.
And what was it like to to film it?
Because obviously you're doing it as like a
it was an independently funded film and you're on.
Is that one of the executive producers as well?
And it's a very I said before, it was almost like a chamber piece,
you know, these guys and the atmosphere comes from
you've in the did you shoot on location.
Was it somewhere that you were out and about?
Actually, surprisingly, we shot in L.A.
in this abandoned building.
I think it was an abandoned bank that just looks very similar to the.
that Abi really wanted
So we shot it in L.A. and and
I stayed there.
I stayed here for, like, what?
I think it was four or five weeks or something like that.
And then, yeah, we just we just shot it as quick as possible.
Yeah.
I have to ask you about someone I love, which is Michael K Williams,
who gave so much to the industry.
It was such a such a titan and and you get to share some time with him.
What were, what were some of the memories that you had to work with him
because he had such a titan on screen, but off screen
he has such a wonderful sense of humor for many.
Yeah, he's got a sense of humor.
Great energy, you know, good clothes,
great banter, inquisitive,
inquisitive mind and smelled amazing.
I mean, that's nice to hear.
That's a good positive side to his both.
Yeah, exactly what this is about.
I just before I go, I wanted to ask you,
I did see the Woman King premiere and that film has done tremendously well.
You know, it's been nominated for BAFTAs
and it really struck a chord and has shown that, you know,
it was all about the actual movies and audiences and everything else, that
the right thing comes out of the right time.
It seems to be one of those films that came out at the right time,
talked about a story that people wanted to see it also about,
you know, a part of history that we didn't really know
how have you taken the fact that people have taken it so well
and it's been it's been so well reviewed and taken by people now.
It's been enjoyed.
That's the that's the beating heart of it all especially a movie like Woman King.
If you look at the budget, the budget of the movie movies
that rarely get made, it's very hard to get them off of its feet.
As you saw Viola Davis
Explain that it was such a process in the fight to get this film to the surface.
So I'm very, very happy.
That's the number one thing you want
is that the audience see it, they like it, they understand the vision
and they find this of Agojie and what she created.
Yeah.
Now we get to see you and Jamie Foxx in the summer on Netflix [They Cloned Tyrone]
That looks like it was a
little bit of scene and in that it was sizzle reel that looked like a good fun
and quite, quite good fun.
I just, you know was was hot and everybody you know with my heart in dark films
I decided I'm going to have fun a little bit in the next one with Jamie.
So that's going to be real cool to listen.
Thanks so much for your time. Pleasure talking to you. Thank you.
Thanks.