-Welcome, Lena Waithe. -Hey, I love you back.
-Whaddup? -Um...
I have been a fan of yours for such a long time,
but there is an additional element of my fandom
that has, like, increased over the past few years.
-And that has been your drip. -Okay.
Everything that you wear.
Like, you have become one of the most stylish individuals.
Did you just decide one day, you were just like,
"You know what? I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna..."
-Gonna stunt? -"I'm gonna stunt on everybody."
-Um, yeah. I think it was a... -(laughter)
I think it was a Thursday morning.
I just said, "No. This all stops.
"Stylish, black, lesbian, masculine-presenting,
we're gonna shut it down and change the world."
That's exactly what you've done.
That's what we're gonna do.
That's exactly what you've done.
Um...
And you're-you're not just doing it with the way you dress.
You are doing it with the things that you create.
Queen & Slim, I truly--
I-I'm not blowing smoke up your ass at all--
I truly have watched few films
that engaged me in the way this movie does.
-It's a powerful story. -Mm.
Like, I-I often say, like, the trailer doesn't do it justice,
'cause in the trailer, it just seems like a story
-where there's a couple that is out on a date, -Mm-hmm.
-and then they get stopped by a cop. -Right.
-The stop goes very wrong, -Right.
and the guy, as we saw,
Daniel Kaluuya's character shoots the cop,
-and then they're on the run. -Right.
But it's a complex story.
How did you even begin to write a story like this?
Why would you choose to do that, especially considering
how real the story is in today's world?
Um, you know, it's so interesting.
You know, Nina Simone says
it is an artist's duty to reflect the times.
And these are the times in which we're living.
It is open season on black bodies.
And what I wanted to do... You know, there's a study
that says if you're ever being held up at gunpoint,
you should tell them personal things about yourself.
You should say, "I have a child."
You should say, "My mother is, you know, on her deathbed,
and I want to see her go." All those things.
Because what happens is the gunman now empathizes with you
-and now sees you as a human. -Oh.
It makes it more difficult for them to kill you.
So I think with my art, I'm wondering
if I can humanize black people enough,
maybe they'll stop killing us.
-It's... -(applause)
It's-it's a powerful story for me
because, you know, on the surface,
a lot of people will think
it's a story about black and white,
-but it's not a story about black and white. -Right.
Like, you don't walk away from this movie going,
-"Oh, I'm angry at white people." -Right.
You're like, "No, I'm angry at the system
-that black people are exposed to." -Absolutely.
You know, like, there are white heroes in this movie.
They're not centered, but there's, like, white people
who are, like, trying to help. There's allies.
-Right. -There's-there's so many complex layers to this.
-Why... Right. -And it's not an anti-cop movie, either.
It's not anti-cop, either, which is really interesting.
Like, like, why was that important to you
to show so many different layers
not just of, like, Americans of different races
-but even different types of black people? -Right.
Because I think there's no such thing as black and white.
You know, there's so many shades of gray.
Um, just the way, like, not all black people are a monolith,
not all cops are the same.
They wear the same uniform, you know,
so what that uniform represents to black people
is-is very different, you know, in that...
It's very interesting because as a young person,
you grow up, and you see videos of the civil rights movement.
And you see young black students,
you know, who are smart and interesting
-doing sit-ins and protesting. -Mm-hmm.
They're being... Like, dogs are sicced on them.
Fire hoses. Like, batons.
And those are police officers doing that to them.
-Right. -And then the next day,
they bring a police officer into the classroom that says,
"This is your friend, kids.
So if you ever need help, you call on a police officer."
So as a young black person,
it was very confusing to me.
And then now imagine being a young black person
where you see on the news black people being killed
in their homes by police officers.
So this-this relationship between police
and particularly the black community
has been fraught since the beginning of time.
-Right. -And-and right now
I just feel like it's-it's an epidemic,
and no one's doing anything about it.
And I think, to me, the idea of flipping the narrative
in that what happens is not the black person gets killed
and we mourn them and have that story,
but what happens if they stop saying,
"Okay, yeah, you can kill me"?
What happens if they stand up and say, "No, I'm gonna live.
I'm gonna survive"?
And how that narrative might make people uncomfortable.
But that's the narrative I'm putting in front of people,
because that's my job as an artist.
It is-- it is uncomfortable, but, at the same time,
it-it captured a complexity that I-I truly always enjoy
in any storytelling, and that is the complexity
-of black joy and black pain. You know? -Absolutely.
Because I-I often say to people, you know,
like-like, people will say, like, even on The Daily Show,
of anything, they'll be like, "Oh, but, as black people,
like, how do you laugh? How do you this?"
And I'm like, "Well, black people can't wait
-for everything to be right to laugh." -Absolutely.
You know what I mean? If black people were like,
"We'll laugh when things are perfect,"
-black people will never laugh. -Absolutely.
-Do you know what I'm saying? And in this film, it's-- -Yeah.
That's-that's what I w-- I want everyone to know
about this movie, for me, I've-I've been in a few movies
where, one moment, you are shocked and crying
and then, the next moment, you are laughing so hard
but, like, a real laugh. It's, like, real joy.
It's-it's-- It is, as you say, the grays.
It's not just black and white. It's not just a movie about,
-like, black people are suffering. It's like, -Right.
-no, black people are human beings. -Right.
This is what they experience. And joy is part
-of what they experience. -Absolutely. The movie, to me,
is a meditation on blackness.
It's a love letter to black people,
in that, even in the midst of oppression, we find joy.
Because we don't have a choice.
You know, we live in a world where we're still treated
like second-class citizens, even though we're walking on land
that our ancestors helped build for free.
And so that is also a very weird dichotomy.
It's sort of like we should be treated like royalty
in this country, but it's the opposite.
And-and, you know-- and I think, for me,
the movie is something that everyone can come see
because everyone should come experience
what the world is like through our lens, you know?
And-and we had final cut on this film.
Everything you see-- every look, every word, every glance--
was a purposeful decision made by myself and Melina.
We didn't take any notes from white people on this one.
-There's no white gaze. -(cheering and applause)
Um, and I think that's why it's hitting different.
You know? Because-- And there's also this weird narrative, like,
"Oh, how difficult was it for y'all to get this movie made?"
Man, the-the industry chased us.
We were like Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game.
They were, like, rolling out the red carpet.
"What do you need? Da-da-da-da."
And I was like, "I will need final cut.
"I want a fat budget. I want to shoot it and release it
"in the same year, 'cause this art is urgent.
"And I want to break a new actress,
and she has to be brown-skinned."
-(cheering and applause) -Let's-let's talk about that.
-Let's talk about that before you leave. -Right.
You know, um, Melina Matsoukas, who-who...
-Phenomenal. The phenomenal Melina Matsoukas. -...who is
an amazing filmmaker. A lot of people know her work
because of the Beyoncé music video, you know, in Lemonade.
She did "Formation" and all that kind of stuff. Insecure.
And people loved her work and the way she-she displays
-not just the art but black skin. -Yeah.
And I mean, only in the most recent years
people have realized, oh, a light of lighting people
in Hollywood don't know how to light the different tones
of black skin, especially dark black skin.
In this movie, you've chosen your leads,
-it seems very specifically. -Absolutely.
You have dark-skinned black people, who you don't often see
-leading films. -Absolutely.
You also have so many different shades of black.
And the way it's lit is beautiful.
It's, like, playing with all the tones.
Why was that important for you?
It was important because I think it's something
we don't see, and...
it was also important to see these two brown-skinned bodies
make love on screen.
Because there's nothing more human than making love.
And when's the last time you saw
two brown bodies make love on celluloid?
I can't remember.
And we wanted to put that out there
because again, it's reminding people how human we are.
And it may seem crazy,
but there has to be some disconnect
that our black skin is so scary to people
that they'd rather shoot first and ask questions later.
And so, that's why I think a microphone
is much more powerful than a grenade.
Our-our art tells us who we are.
And I wanted this, you know, the thing about Gordon Parks
why he inspires me so much is because what he did was,
he captured America as it was.
You know, one of my favorite photographs of, that he took
was little black kids looking through a fence
seeing white kids playing joy-joyfully on a playground.
-Mm-hmm. -There's no, nothing,
there's nothing more American than that.
You know, um, there's a carefreeness
that white people know that black people
will never understand.
And those were things that I really wanted
to capture in the film.
But at the same time, there's a joy--
I mean, I love that James Baldwin said that
a black smile can light up any room.
And I believe that.
And I wanted to show that in this movie, as well.
You know, this country has a very complicated past.
And I think that's why this present is still so complex.
And we-we, racism is a wound that we haven't healed yet.
And I think through my art, I'm working through that trauma.
Because to be black is beautiful,
but it's also traumatizing.
Because you can't watch the news and see black bodies drop
and nothing happened to those that are the reason
why those black bodies have dropped.
You can't, if you're a black person in America,
you're being told that you're life
is not as valid as someone else's.
You captured that in the film.
I hope that everyone watches it with an open mind.
I-I-I've said to your personally and I'll say it again.
I think this is one of those movies
where the trailer can't tell you the story.
The review is how everybody will feel about it.
I hope everybody sees it. You've created a beautiful
-work of art. -Thank you, man.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, man.
Queen & Slim will be in theaters November 27th.
Lena Waithe, everybody.