(soft music)
- Jamie, you played a real life character.
When you're playing that role,
how much do you have to be faithful to him?
- The first thing that helped me was aesthetically.
We are part of the same tribe in a sense,
our cheekbones, the diamond shaped head,
that haircut that he had, I had that in the 80s as well.
So aesthetically, we were ahead of the game.
I didn't have a chance to see him actually alive
but I had to sorta like piece things together
through what people were saying.
And then talking to Bryan Stevenson,
and hearin' him talk about-- - He's a real life attorney.
- He's a real life attorney. - That the film is based on.
- Who you know, goes and meets this guy on death row
and finds out all these horrible things.
He's on death row without a trial.
They say he killed a white woman
in a city that he'd never been in.
And he couldn't believe that this existed.
But he told me how Walter was.
He felt like, since I'm in this situation,
I might as well do everything I can to help.
So when you see in the movie when he's talkin'
to all the prisoners and everything like that,
tryin' to keep up their morale, these guys on death row.
So I took that as the spirit of it
and then it was a matter of, the vernacular,
bein' in Alabama, and the way they talk like that.
The way they say they thangs and you know.
And to make that not be caricature like.
I remember Michael B. Jordan, listen, nah don't do that.
Because it started soundin' like somethin',
where we really couldn't understand me.
So we sorta dialed that in.
So sometimes you have to rely on the people that are around
you to say, what makes the most sense.
(soft music)
- You shot in a real life prison?
- Yeah. - Right.
Those prison scenes are phenomenal.
They're really incredible.
Did you think-- - Yeah, the one moment
when the cuffs was bein' put on me
and they had a guy who was part of the prison system,
who wasn't part of the movie,
yeah you gotta squeeze it tighter.
Squeeze it tighter 'cause he's a bigger one.
Squeeze it tighter.
- There was a couple times I'm like hey man,
don't squeeze it, don't, they're tight enough.
You know what I'm sayin'?
So he doesn't know that he's saying something
that is taking me come out these cuffs.
But that's his everyday life.
We become so used to it too
'cause we talkin' to Bryan Stevenson, talkin' about
changin' the perception because the perception kills us.
It's like, the reason I don't wanna go see somebody in jail
is because I don't wanna get used to that.
But so many people are just used to seein' their father,
their brother, their mothers in jail.
And the next thing you know, we start rappin' about it.
We should rap about bein' in jail
'cause we don't have any other thing, this is all we see.
So it's a tough thing.
(soft music)
The movie process, it's a little bit different
if you know what I mean.
It's like.
- You mean from the theater or?
- Not even that, just like, when I was on Any Given Sunday,
I remember Oliver Stone, when I first auditioned,
was like, you're horrible, when I auditioned.
And I was like why?
Because I was television actor.
So everything I did was loud, yeah, so,
you better understand this with the football in the air man.
(laughing)
And he's like, (mumbling) get the fuck outta here.
- Oliver can be tough.
- No but I learned from that toughness.
Meaning like, when he finally decided to make the decision
for me to be the lead, he still would grill me.
He said that's not it, that's not it, that's not it.
Like workin' with Quentin Tarantino,
and I watched an actor struggle because
the set was like, it was heavy.
I mean you had Samuel Jackson here, you had Leo.
I mean there was some juggernauts, you know what I'm sayin',
come on mother fuckers, say that shit.
(wheezing) And the dude was
tryin' to say come on, come on get it.
And the guy was tryin' to get his line
and I watched Quentin Tarantino go to him,
no it's okay, everything's fine, just say the line.
And I was like, damn, this shit ain't gonna work out right?
But then you see the movie.
(laughing)
I said god damn!
And Quentin said, all I need is one.
Even workin' with Christophe, Christophe,
watchin' him work, I learned a little bit more about movie.
I watched him fold a paper.
This mother fucker wrote on the thing
and was just supposed to put it in his pocket.
It seemed like it took him forever to do it.
(chuckling)
It was nothin' else existed but that moment right?
Christophe Waltz'S process, wasn't that
I'm gonna have all of these things memorized
and do all of these things at once.
He would give you these, calm yourselves gentlemen!
One more time.
Calm yourselves gentlemen, I am but a weary traveler.
Wait, wait.
And we were watchin' him and Leo was like.
(laughing)
I said Leo, you think he got it?
He's got some pal.
(laughing)
Just keep watchin', some shit is goin' on.
And you see all these little bits of things
and then all of a sudden in the movie, boom.
Calm yourselves gentlemen.
I was like oh shit.
And then, I'd like to thank the academy.
(laughing)