(rock 'n roll drum beat)
- Hi this is Marya Gullo from The Hollywood Reporter,
and we're in studio with Boots Riley.
- What's up?
- How ya doin'?
- I'm doing good.
- All right, I'm going to start off by
kind of, I want to go 10 years into the future.
And I want to look back on 2018.
- Okay.
- Do you see, kind of the shaping of a new genre
with 2018, in films?
- Yeah, you know, I think that that's kind of how it works,
is like, the industry kind of shapes what's there
based on, this worked before so here's the kind of things
we're funding and so then people even write based on
what gets funded, and they'll be like,
a lot of people will be like, oh I'm writing a low-budget
uh, slasher flick, because they've seen those
and somebody will give them money for it.
Oh, I'm writing a romantic comedy where they travel to
Paris, you know, and so it kind of categorizes that,
and then every now and then, somebody will do something
different, so they'll make this thing, and then it,
people are, it's kind of known people want something more,
but then, unfortunately, it's like, okay that new thing
is the thing that's getting funded, so I'm going to make
some more of that.
It should just open it up, like, look,
we don't know exactly what people want.
They want something new that they haven't seen before,
not just, I don't know, how, after uh,
Wes Anderson came out there was
all these like, I heart huckabees
and all that kind of stuff that kind of,
was trying to get into that particular market.
There will be people copying that,
or maybe not necessarily copying it, but influenced by it.
But then, and that'll be a little, the folks influenced
by it, that'll be a little bit more honest,
but on the other hand, then there will be people that know
that they can get funded by being alike.
This is like Sorry To Bother You.
And I don't down them for that, but that's unfortunate
that the folks that are funding have to have that.
- Right.
- You know, have to have that reference instead of
like, this is something new.
And no, it's not like Sorry To Bother You,
or this other stuff, you know.
- Right, right.
Yeah, because it's easy to kind of lump together,
oh there's a lot of success around Oakland-based
filmmakers, or films, films in Oakland.
- Yeah.
- So, oh, there's a new genre.
The Oakland school.
- Yeah.
- But isn't it kind of a dream of a filmmaker to be part
of some sort of a, like the French new wave
or the American new wave?
- Oh yeah.
You know, definitely you want, artistically
want to make a mark.
You know, I would just like to see,
you know I think art that
gets developed by market forces
ends up getting constrained in ways
that impede the actual art.
I would like that new wave
to be people
pushing the boundaries and doing something new,
but not just, not just using the path
that gets beaten the year before them.
- Yeah.
I mean, are you excited about the fact that you did
kind of, you know, kind of broke, uh,
during a time period where it is fresh,
and it isn't, I mean, you tell me,
if it's impeded by the marketplace or,
if this is the time to be really creatively stimulated?
- Yeah, I think there's a window that's opened.
- Yeah.
- And it's like how people choose to take it.
Like, D'Angelo, take it on the music side.
D'Angelo came out with, uh, what was his second album?
I forget what it's called, but with How Does It Feel.
And he had a sound that definitely was influenced by
other sounds before, but it was brand new.
And then, everybody came out sounding like D'Angelo.
Right?
So that when he came out, it was kind of like,
dude, you kind of sound like D'Angelo.
I mean, you know, you are D'Angelo, but,
(Marya laughs)
you sound like all this other stuff that came out
that sounds like D'Angelo.
And so, and that's,
because that was what was getting pushed like,
oh, we got an artist that sounds like D'Angelo,
we can get him on the radio.
That same thing, it's the same thing.
with film.
And you know, I think there's brilliant
artists who are already filmmakers and who could
become filmmakers, and I think, hopefully,
the through line is, pushing envelopes,
telling good stories, and having a passion behind it.
And then that creates, through that combination
of their passion and their life influences,
creates something else that people won't say looks
like Sorry To Bother You or this,
but they'll have the spirit of that.
- Right.
Are you bracing, are you bracing yourself
for the possibility that you're going to see
a major movie studio do some sort of a knock-off
of Sorry To Bother You?
- Mm.
You know what?
I'm not thinking about that too much.
But yeah, I mean, if you look at history,
how that happens, it'll happen.
(Marya laughs)
And they'll be like, uh, it's like Sorry To Bother You
but it has a gorilla and
a twenty thousand foot plane
that's about to crash into Chicago,
or you know, something like that.
(Marya laughs)
And uh, it cost two hundred million to make.
(both laugh)
But you know, and that's how it goes.
So I'm not worried about that, because I think
what will shine through are the people
that are doing the stuff they love.
- Right, yeah.
Sorry To Bother You covered a lot of issues;
the economy, cultural appropriation,
race relations, corporate corruption,
gender politics, are you going to need a,
take a break from these subjects,
or are they, or are you heading full steam
into the next project with those?
- I don't know how I could take a break from those.
- (laughs) Right?
- And stay connected to the way the world is.
(Marya laughs)
You know, so, it's just what,
it's funny because I've seen people make a list
of what the movie handles, and I really hadn't
thought about that it handles those things.
I knew, you know, 'cos it all grows out of
just heightening the contradictions of situations.
And having those situations grow out of
the main story, and also trying to
talk about the larger, philosophical ideas
that are, that grow out of those situations
or put those situations in context.
And you know, so I didn't have to go like, oh,
I'm going to handle this, I'm going to do that,
it's just kind of what happens when you know,
you let the light refract off of the other
reflections that are there.
- You spent a lot of time with Sorry To Bother You now.
Have you been satisfied with how
audiences have reacted to it?
- Yeah, it's always fun sitting in a screening
you know, people kind of have a lot of the same things
they laugh at, some of the stuff in it
people aren't sure whether they should laugh
or whatever, but it does something to them,
it makes people uncomfortable, it makes people squirm,
or you know, things like that.
And yeah, I love messing with people.
- Collective bargaining was featured prominently
in this movie, are you excited to be a director now
knowing that you're going into
the filmmaking industry, which is still
a very strong union, at least in the United States?
- As me being someone that's been very broke
most of my life, definitely being in a situation
where I can pay my bills and that situation
being available to me because people fought
for it together, collectively,
is definitely a good feeling, and I want to honor that.
What I'm really excited for is that that idea
of people fighting together and uniting together on the job
seems like something that is spreading past the things
that are traditionally unionized.
And going further into the 93% of
working people that are not organized, that excites me.
- You've been nominated for some independent spirit awards.
What do you think about the awards process,
the awards season?
- Yeah.
It's uh, it's fun, there's a lot of alcohol,
(Marya laughs)
hors d'oeuvres, um,
I like talking about my movie,
I like talking about movies and going to movies,
so that's, that's really part of the big thing,
you know, is getting more people to see the movie.
And the awards season allows for some of that.
And the awards seasons, it's kind of like, you know, getting
other people that are filmmakers of some sort
or critics, or producers, or whatever,
I guess as a filmmaker to see the film,
and to kind of know what I'm up to.
So it's kind of also collecting people
that are like, I'm down with that, you know.
Let me, tell me how I can help something else
like this happen, and it's good to see that.
There's a lot of that, there's a lot of people
who are in the film industry
that want to be making
films that have to do with their passion for the world,
and didn't know that they could.
- You had, you took some issues with the historical
inaccuracies in BlacKKKlansman.
- I would say that I didn't, it's not the historical
inaccuracies, 'cos I don't care,
you know, I don't, I don't have any um,
marriage to the facts when making art.
The question is, like, you know, because it's not a
documentary, but the question is,
what are the changes achieving?
What is your political point that you're making
with those changes, because that's what's happening.
I mean, I was a telemarketer.
Most of the stuff that happened in my movie
didn't really happen, what are the embellishments
that I made, what am I saying with those things?
- Right, right.
- Right.
So, with those made-up, heroic acts,
and with the things that Spike left out
that he was trying to make a false narrative
that the police are allies in the fight against racism.
The real uh, Ron Stallworth,
he infiltrated the Progressive Labor Party,
which was a radical organization,
and he was doing that at the time.
But, at the same time as he was working with the police
to invade the Klan, and he was the police,
and also worked, talking with the FBI every week,
he was infiltrating the Progressive Labor Party
because their slogan was 'Smash the Klan'.
This is not in the movie.
So he infiltrated that group because they didn't like
that they were wanting to break up Klan rallies,
so he goes to the, to the PLP meetings,
which were about smashing/stopping the Klan rallies,
find out what they were going to do,
and report that to the police.
Who, the police then had their guy
in the, in the uh, Klan, and magically
the Klan avoided having their rallies stopped.
So, it's not that it's just historically inaccurate,
it's that this movie is telling the opposite story
of why the police infiltrated the Klan.
And telling the opposite story
of what Ron Stallworth was doing.
The real thing that happens in there, where,
I want to say, everybody in that movie did an excellent job,
from the actors to the cinematographer, and even with my
problems with Spike, he's a master storyteller, he did it.
My problems with him are his political choices.
Politically, he's got an agenda, like we all do.
We've all got a political outlook and agenda.
- Um, I wanted to talk to you a bit about
Tessa Thompson's character, Detroit.
Was it important to create a new kind of love interest role,
somebody who is a fully fleshed out person
independent of the main character,
are you writing women you know?
- Um, really I wrote me.
- Yeah.
- You know?
I wrote me.
And um, because I think, I think
maybe it works out better
if you write them from the inside.
And you have some idea that we're all human.
And you know, there's often, obviously,
different details, so it's, what would I do
if I was in that situation?
I wanted her to have an intellectual contradiction
around art and organizing.
Because, we're humans, we have
those intellectual contradictions.
Not everyone has those, but, I wanted her to have that,
and I think sometimes people don't read that into it,
because you're not expecting that, you're not looking
for that, you're looking for that in some other character.
And so I wanted her to have goals,
and things that like, in it, like,
Cassius has nothing to do with the stuff she's doing
with Left Eye, and her goals around that and her conflict
around art and all of that have
nothing to do with that,
and she does stuff based on what she needs,
and not necessarily because of what she needs from Cassius.
- Yeah.
So, um, a couple more questions for you.
What are you working on next?
And also, what are the plans for The Coup in 2019?
- Let's see.
The things I can talk about.
I'm doing a pilot, I'm creating a tv show.
I'm doing, and um, I'm creating that
with Michael Ellenburg's new studio, Media Rez.
Michael Ellenburg is one of the people that brought
Game of Thrones to HBO, and so, working on that,
shooting the pilot in 2019.
I'm writing and directing an episode of
Guillermo Del Toro's Netflix horror anthology.
10 After Midnight.
So he's handed me a short story that I'm adapting.
And I did that, basically, because I want to work
with Guillermo Del Toro.
And um, then a feature film deal, but I can't talk about the
details of that, but that I'm writing and directing.
And then for The Coup, we plan to be
performing at The Oscars.
And I just mean that we have a song that's on the short list
for Best Song, which is the song
O-Y-A-H-Y-T-T,
which stands for Oh Yeah All Right Hell Yeah That's Tight.
And uh, hopefully it becomes one
of the five nominees and we're performing.
- I would really like to see that.
(laughs) I'd really like to see that.
Thank you so much, Boots!
- Thank you!
Thanks for having me.
(dramatic metallic noise)