(upbeat jazz music)
- I saw "Ma Rainey" in, whatever it was, '84 on Broadway
and was blown away.
I never heard that kind of music in words before.
- I ain't going to be too many more of your fools.
- Boy, ain't nobody studyin' you.
- All right, and I ain't nobody.
Don't pay me no mind.
I ain't nobody.
- Ain't nobody but the devil.
- There you go!
That's who I am.
I'm the devil.
I ain't nothing but the devil.
- I know a man sold his soul to the devil.
(men scoff)
Name of Eliza Cotter.
Lived in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama.
(men laugh)
The devil came by and he upped and sold him his soul.
- The dialogue just pops, and it does crackle.
People are lyrical with language.
- It's poetry.
And he's been called American Shakespeare.
- The voices are so different with August Wilson.
They draw you in because of the beauty
of the sentence structure.
- You colored and you can make them some money
then you all right with them.
Otherwise you're just a dog in the alley.
- I think Ruben Santiago-Hudson did a really beautiful job
when it comes to the screenplay.
- Ruben adores August's writing.
So in many respects, he brought this purity.
And for lack of better words,
I brought a kind of storytelling irreverence.
- August Wilson translates beautifully, his storytelling.
But it also helps to have a director
who can find the essence that makes it
a moving picture storytelling process.
- It was so important to George and to Denzel and myself
to make sure it's cinematic.
It doesn't feel like you're just watching it
in a theater with a proscenium.
- Chicago 1927 is so specific, and I hate nostalgia.
Nostalgia puts a patina on history.
And when you do that, you discredit the texture
of the people who lived through that moment.
- I can't tell people what it was like.
You were teleported back in time.
You were there.
You weren't just imagining it.
You could see it.
You could taste it.
You could touch it.
- It's the challenge for the filmmaker.
And I hate to use that word, open it up
but to interpret it, the way he or she feels.
In the play, the cops bring Ma Rainey into the studio.
So that was a simple one.
Hey, let's get out in the street.
Now we go outside.
We go, "Wait, wait a minute.
"Not only can we go out in the street,
"let's have the accident."
- I got eyes, you got eyes--
- Ma, what the hell happened? - Listen to me--
- Better tell this man who I am.
Better get him straight.
Tell this man who he messing with!
- Taking a story from stage to film,
you know, as an actor, it's just more intimate.
The camera's just a few inches from where you are
and you have to have some practice
and really feeling like it's coming from you.
That it's not a performance, that you're not playing
to someone in a 2,000-seat theater.
- I seen my daddy go up and grin in this cracker's face...
(chortles)
smile in his face and sell him his land.
All the while he's planning how he's gonna to get him
and what he's gonna do to him.
That taught me how to handle them.
- The great thing about August Wilson is
it's the greatest parts that I've read
for African-American actors.
- While I feel that the beauty of August's work
being seen globally is that the African-American experience
is being experienced globally.
That's why it's important.
(slow jazz music)