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Full Frontal - Blair Underwood Interview
by Phillip Duncan
What was it like working with Steven Soderbergh? Amazing. He’s one of those creative forces who’s not afraid to
push the creative envelope and challenge himself and stretch himself. He allows
the actors to do the same, I can’t say he demands it, because his style
is very low key, very soft-spoken and very easy going, but his work speaks for
itself. You look at almost all of his films and each one is different from the
one before. He doesn’t really repeat himself that often, so that kind
of creative force is fascinating to work with and exciting to work with. Did you enjoy working under the 10 Rules that he had set up for the movie? Yeah, that was all fun and partially tongue-in-cheek, although we did stick
by it. But it was. What it did was really just minimize any egos, if there were
to be any—I didn’t see any—and everybody was there to have
fun. It’s such a short period of time. It was an 18 day shoot. So you’re
talking about 3 weeks out of your life. I worked 7 of those days, so that’s
a week, so why not? It’s an incredible cast to work with so you have nothing
to lose. The DVD has several of the interviews where they interview you in character, was that difficult? No, that was the fun part. That took me back to Acting 101 in college when
you have to know your character so well that someone should be able to ask you
anything about that character and you should have an answer, or have a take
on it or a thought process. The reality is if you ask me something about many
things I say and I don’t know. It really helps you flesh out the character.
How much of it is really you and how much is the character? I don’t know how much. Every character is going to be a good portion
of that actor. I just try to, in subtle ways, to find some kind of distinction
between the three. Each one is an actor. The actor in the movie and the romantic
comedy was pretty much straight forward just with his body language and his
gestures, where the actor playing him had subtle New York-isms in his speech
and his body language. So I try to find ways to differentiate them from one
another. Your speech in the car about the state of black leading men in Hollywood was amazing, how did that evolve? Was that in the script? No it was not in the script actually. Soderbergh had said early on, “I want you guys to feel free improvise and just speak from what you know, from your history or whatever you feel.” He says play an actor. So, here I’m an actor. I’m an African-American actor in Hollywood and there are some challenges that are very specific and endemic to who I am and what I am. So I jotted some notes down and really felt it was just too much, too dark, too heavy and too deep. I went to a buddy of mine whose name is D Knowledge, D for Derrick, who is a published poet. He’s also a professor of Sociology at Yale. Now I think he’s in Michigan somewhere and he wrote that poem for me.
I ran it by Steven before we started shooting and he said he loved it and had
a place to put it and he kept it in there. We almost didn’t get a chance
to do it because there was another scene in that place. The scene was really
all about these two people bonding, Julia and me. We shot what was scripted
and we were coming back to the hotel. I asked Steven is now a good time—it’s
a good thing because the sun was going down and we were losing our light—and
he said let’s do it. He turned on the camera. You see, there are no cutaways,
so it was just that one take, that one time. I was just glad he kept it in the
film. There’s also a little reference to The Pelican Brief in there, was that intentional since you knew you’d be working with Julia Roberts? Absolutely, absolutely. That was the one thing. Julia had not heard the poem
and I said I want to let you know there is one reference to you and I told her
that line. I didn’t want her to stop the take if she didn’t like
it or something, to make sure she was cool with it. She said as long as it’s
not mean. I said, “Aw girl, it’s not mean.” She said go for
it. We did it and she was fine with it. One last thing about that, I also noticed on the interviews section on the DVD that it has you rapping it out to music… Is that on there?! Yeah. It has you dancing out in the hills. Oh, that’s funny. On, that’s great. That’s on there for everybody to see. Oh, that’s comedy.
Soderbergh stated that he had spy cameras everywhere, is that something you were aware of at the time? No man, I was not aware at all. In fact, there is one scene in the final cut
where Julia and I are sitting at a table, near the end of the movie, and we’re
talking. I was not even aware of that camera. So I can’t imagine I would
have said anything derogatory about anybody, but you never know. I don’t
know what’s on that tape. Would you be willing to work under those conditions, those pared down conditions again? Oh yeah. That’s really going back to the starting out days doing that,
especially when you get a team of people—not only Steven, but the entire
cast—and everybody comes together for a brief time. You know, we’ve
all got bills to pay and lifestyles to maintain, but every once in awhile it
would be great. What it does is, it really creates a nice working environment
where people just want to have fun. They’re not there for the money. What inspired you to become an actor in the first place? Part of it is probably my background, because my dad was a career military
officer. So we were constantly bounced around from city to city, state to state.
I know that it formed me as a person to become an actor, because I was acting
all the time. We’re all actors. Shakespeare says we’re all actors
on a stage, right? But I think even more so we have that nomadic lifestyle where
you’re always in and out of different environments, so you either adapt
or not. If you don’t’ adapt, that goes against the grain of my personality.
I think partially that and actors that I respected, or ones that moved me or
affected me, those are primarily dramatic actors—De Niro, Pacino, Sidney
Poitier, James Earl Jones, Meryl Streep--those who do it and do it well.
So what’s next for you? Having said that, I have a broad comedy coming out on April 18, called Malibu’s Most Wanted. If you’ve seen the Jamie Kennedy Experiment on the WB Network, have you seen that? A few episodes, yes. He’s the star of the movie. It’s his movie. It’s based on
one of his characters on his show, this rapper from Malibu who thinks he’s
black, wants to be black. He’s an Eminem wanna be. It’s a movie
based on that character, it’s pretty funny, pretty broad. I also noticed on your website that it said you wanted to direct, anything coming in that venue? There’s one project that wasn’t on the website called My Soul to
Keep. It’s a book I bought the rights to and we’re developing it
now with a studio, and I can’t say right now which one. It’s in
development. We’re looking at a different writer right now for the script.
I was going to direct it. I may not now. I’ll still act in it and produce
it, but I may not direct it. There are still a number of projects that I’m
looking at directing and if the right one comes along, yeah. I’ve done
one short film and five music videos, but I’m looking for that right project
to do full-length. Again, congratulations on the film and I want to say thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Best of luck in the future.
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