Mario Van Peebles on using action to reveal character

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:13Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. If you've been watching this series, Nemesis, on Netflix, in the first episode, you probably saw what you thought was a tribute to an existentialist crime drama that came out 35 years ago. perhaps because both New Jack City and the first two episodes of Nemesis were directed by my guests, the way-too-prolific Mario Van Peebles. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Your first time being here, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get you here. Yeah, it is. Thank you for doing this. Good to be here, brother. But I'm sorry, I laughed out loud at the first five minutes of Nemesis just seeing what was clearly a throwback to a little bit of New Jack City.

0:54Someone on Twitter put the two images of Wesley as Nito and Lon as Coltrane side by side and did one of those who wore it better things. You know, we had fun with nodding towards it. Not just to New Jack, but to other things you'll see throughout. Well, certainly Heat. Heat, right? But when you think of New Jack as sort of New Jack cops versus New Jack gangsters, it has some of that element to it. The thing I think people don't think about you is it's, again, an existential action drama, which is, in effect, what another movie that's having an anniversary this year, Sweet Sweetback, is also an existential action drama.

1:34And so it's kind of something in your, one hates to say, bones, but it is that, isn't it? Yeah. And you look at the timing of it. Sweet Back comes out in 1971, becomes a top grossing independent hit of its time. And then New Jack City comes out 20 years later. My first feature made as a negative pickup for Warner Brothers. Oh, it wasn't? No, it wasn't a Warner Brothers movie. It was a negative pickup. Then we showed it to them and they're like, yes. And they gave me a little more money to do some of the drug treatment stuff that we deal with in New Jack. Because part of the trick to New Jack, as you know, was in a gangster movie, typically you emotionally connect with the gangster.

2:11Hence, gangster movie. Like if you watch Godfather, you watch two and a half hours of a guy with family values. He just happens to take off a horse's head and kill folks now and then. And sell drugs to black people. Yeah. And, you know, and, and it's same thing with Scarface, even as brutal as it is, you wind up connecting with the gangster. And what I wanted to do in New Jack was have folks connect with the gangster. Yes, the New Jack gangster, but also with the New Jack cops. So kind of shifted it more from Black Scarface to being multi-culti untouchables. If you think about De Niro still has a badass role in Untouchables, but against Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Andy Garcia, they're alternative role models to say yes to if you're trying to get folks to just say no to drugs.

2:55And then unusual about New Jack, which I haven't really seen in a gangster picture, maybe you could tell me more, is that you also emotionally connect with the victim. And therefore, the crime is not victimless. And I've had people come up to me. We just showed New Jack in France in the French version. Folks came up to me and said, man, after seeing New Jack, they were just so deglamorized drugs that he was like, I didn't want to touch any part of crack after that. So that was interesting to have. When we showed New Jack, we had kids get up in the middle of the screen and say, just say no, my b****, in reaction to when Chris Rock is, Pookie, is getting addicted to drugs.

3:32It's complex in that, yeah, you get people to see the emotional truth of the Nino, the gangster, but also the cops, and then somewhere in there, the victim. because sweet back for me as much as as much anything else is an action film because there's constant movement that's something that's happens it's interesting to the scene and nemesis to see the camera move so much in this and yeah that's clearly something you want to do so to keep us sort of wondering where the ball's going to land right in the same way you do with new jack i mean because that idea is for like making the camera almost our point of view so but it's also a step ahead of us.

4:06What's going on? You kind of like keeping people off guard. You do it in posse, too. Right, right. Yeah, and in New Jack, and in posse, I often do it with music. It's related to rhythm. Sergio Leone said to his composer Marconi, it's not the director's job to inspire the composer, it's in fact the reverse. So he would go in with music in mind. So I know when I'm doing, when I did New Jack City, that that first move, that's sort of one long lyrical move that goes into the 59th Street Bridge pre-drone. That's incredible. Long take. I mean, it really is kind of breathtaking. And then he goes over, the guy is over the side, that that is that, for the love of money, so this kind of nice little lyrical thing, and then you get Queen Latifah weighing in.

4:55And then after, in the next sequence, you get this really amped up, through the hood bike chase. which is, Hustler! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do Jack Hustler. So I know the rhythm of that is going to be choppy and violent and visceral. And I was inspired by Bennex, who had done a film called Diva. John Jack Bennex. Yeah, who had done it, which was, there's a scene where he goes down in the, non le metro avec le mobilette, you know, so he's going in the metro. And I was like, oh, yo, I want Chris Rock to do that going down the steps. Let's get the good bike chase through the hood kind of thing versus the car chase that was scripted to be there.

5:32And I said, look, after Beverly Hills Cop came out with all them cigarettes flying out the truck, that whole thing, Hollywood had raised the ante on what a car chase should look like to the point where it's like, that'll be my whole budget. I'm an independent film. So you got to go with the original. And sometimes in deficit, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And I think that's one of the things that's what's nice about doing these things pre-AI. You're not just pressing a prompt. You're going, oh, how do I make something magical in this existing dynamic? It's the treatment. My guest who's proving he's the son of Melvin Van Peebles is Mario Van Peebles.

6:14We're talking about a number of things with him. He's directing work on Nemesis, but also some anniversaries. I think something you do about energy too, which I think also makes us feel as audience members like we're feeling this way it happens. You cast people who aren't really actors. I mean, using Chris Rock, but also using Christopher Williams, and using Big Daddy Kane, and people like that in Posse. You like to do that so it's not just actors around with other actors. It's the actors saying, well, what's this guy going to say next to? So there's a kind of suspense going on in everything, isn't there?

6:48Totally, because it allows, like I said, the magic, the improv. And then there's scenes where you just go, let me get out of the way. The scene with Wesley and Alan Payne on the roof, that's them. And that's me going, my best ideas aren't my ideas necessarily. They're part of the group mind, the collective. Geniosity that comes from us as human beings being present together and just going, wow, these brothers got it. Let me just photograph it and get out of the way. You know, often things come to me at the time and sometimes to other people. And if you're receptive and go, bring the idea, let's go.

7:25And if it's a good idea, let's do it. You know, of course, you got to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. But you can say, OK, that's a great idea, Mario. You brought your whatever to this interview, but we are still starting at a specific time. We still have to be cognizant of the line where art meets commerce. And you had a great teacher. And in addition to your father, you also work with one of the great sort of like, let's take advantage of this, but we only have so much money to spend people in the world. And that's Clint Eastwood. Oh, man. And dad set me up wonderfully in some ways.

7:58I think both my mom and dad did. And my pop once said, maybe it's the mother that shows you the mountain and gives you a sense of self and the father that teaches you how to climb it, if you're lucky. And I sort of have a nice combination of both. My mom took me to all around the world and took me to theater and we hitchhiked to Altamont to see the Rolling Stones. So that was a big plate. But then with that, I got to go to Black Panther meetings. I got to see him direct Broadway plays. I got to see him deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and misfortune in Hollywood. And that's a learning process that's very valuable because, you know, as Clint Eastwood said, no one's going to be flavor of the month for 30 years.

8:39but by the time I met Clint Eastwood on Heartbreak Ridge, I was ready to shut up and listen as a young man. I was ready to be all I could be, but I was used to being around my dad and not always, not everything's aimed at you or geared towards you. Get in there, listen, learn, be ready, be helpful and be prepared. Luck is preparation meets opportunity. So I was prepared and then I got the opportunity and in Heartbreak Ridge, I had to play Ayatollah of rock and roll. And I had to learn the guitar. I didn't play the guitar. And so I realized that they didn't have songs for me to play yet and that it would not leave me enough time to learn the songs.

9:22So I did what all Van Peoples do. Keep on keeping on. I wrote a few songs. And do you know, I took those songs to Clint Eastwood. He said, well, these little ditties ain't half bad. And he sent me over to Warner Brothers, had a limo pick me up and take me over there. and they had a real guy play this stuff for me. And by the time we were done, I joined ASCAP, wrote six songs, sitting in the editing room with him. And he just got a kick out of this hungry kid. But that's just how you grow up with Van Peebles. When you're in a, by any means, necessary filmmaking family, you learn how to edit, how to direct, how to act, and how to get in where you fit in.

9:59And that was it. And I'll never forget, we went into Malpaso. And there's only a couple of folks there. And he looks at me and goes, Yeah, I know Van Peebles. You're wondering, well, I don't have more people here. He said, let me tell you, when you make money for people, they want to give you more money to make them more money. But you have to decide if that's what you want to do. He said, I have found if I hire more than two or three people, I am now managing personalities. Because this one didn't like that one who had the attitude with the other one. And then I'm meeting with people under fluorescent lights and I'm no longer doing what I love, which is making movies.

10:35But you've got to say, is that how I want to spend my finite number of days incarnate in this form on this planet? And if it is, cool. And if it's not, adjust. We're going to take a break for some more adjustments from perennial student Mario Van Peebles. It's the treatment. There's more to come. Stay with us.

11:04is the newest film from Nicholas Winding Refn, director of Drive and The Neon Demon. It has been hailed by critics as a visually striking hypnotic neo-noir, starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton. Her Private Hell opens in theaters everywhere July 24th. It's the treatment. We're back with the perennially growing Mario Van Peebles. I was corrected during the break. He's the one who's growing. I'm just getting older. He's got a number of things going on, so many anniversaries. But also a nemesis. I'm going to talk to you about this, too, because something you do in Nemesis, which is something I've noticed that you do a lot in your work as a storyteller, is you make these intergenerational stories.

11:40It's about people coming up versus people who represent the status quo versus people who feel they're being left behind. I mean, there's the older character who ends up being the Doe Sex Mackinac at the end of New Jack City. I don't want to give too much away, but there's the father of one of the protagonists here in Nemesis, and you are attracted to these stories are about generations pushing at each other and also trying to redefine what masculinity is for each generation. You know, Courtney Kemp and Tani Marol, who wrote the script, had found complexities. I had worked with Courtney. I directed a show called Raising Kanan.

12:19Yeah, we should say Courtney comes from the power world. And I did a little of power. And so we'd been sort of circling and just known each other and felt like family. And then when I met Tani, and we started having at it and just having great talks about all our favorite films and kicking it, they brought the script to me and said, what do you think? And I read it very quickly and said, yo, I'm in. So they let me do my thing at it. And we shot right here in L.A., which was lovely. It was after the fires, after the strikes, and we were saying, and they insisted that we shoot here in L.A. but there were already Elvis complex characters and then I just added to it you know they you know I just as you know I speak actor pretty well because that's that's kind of how I came up but but you're right I wanted what I what I found attractive about it was different kinds of men different kinds of you know you think of sometimes black folks are looked at and we always say we're not monolithic but you really saw different from skin tone to socioeconomic divide not only that I live in View Park, so I live good in the hood right next to Baldwin Hills in L.A.

13:32And the characters live there. And I say, oh, I can roll out of bed and direct this scene. But there are complexities with the father-son dynamics, you know, which you'll see in my work from Badass, of course, to all the way through. I thought that was interesting. But I also thought in Nemesis was interesting was the role of the women and that you had two, in essence, two couples. Both men are really in love with their wives and, you know, there's that dynamic. But their women are become very powerful and sort of step forward in the action specific spaces. So there were complexities there that I thought were really rich and fun to play with.

14:12And then the dynamic with the son and the granddad and all that, you know, we go, oh, my God, how's that going to work? And then the layers of secrecy, what we feel comfortable with sharing, what we don't share. and everyone, you know, like anything else, depending on your own point of view and where your consciousness is, you watch Nemesis and one person is going to see this movie and someone else is going to see that series. And, you know, like anything else, I like things that if you rewatch it, you can see something different, that there are layers in it. That intrigues me as an actor. It's the treatment we're talking African-American nuance with my guest Mario Van Peele.

14:48It's always great to talk to him. He's got so much stuff going on. But one of the things else, the big thing that's so nice, what you do, And it's interesting the way it plays out in Nemesis is for you, action defines character. The way people react in a violent situation, that's the Howard Hawks. That's who you are. That's Clint Eastwood. It's who you are is the way you react to action or when things are falling apart around you. And we see that happening in Nemesis with both the women and the men. You're talking about this in a way that we hadn't seen before. And I was wondering if that was part of the fun of doing Nemesis too, is that it gets to be a more inclusive world than you had been able to dramatize in the past.

15:25Yeah, and I think to what you're saying there, Elvis, is that if you and I are sitting here doing this interview, we get to know each other, we're talking. That's one thing. But if a big fire were to break out, and we would do what people do, we'd get our butts out of this place. But if we realize that one of our engineers is stuck, and you and I say, okay, the guy's stuck in there, it's burning, the fire department won't get in here, We got to go back and get him. And we decide to go back and get him. Now we've done something that is not the norm. And that is when you become a hero. You'll know more about me in those five minutes.

16:02And I'll know more about you in those five minutes if we both go and get that dude out. And so seeing how ordinary folks react in extraordinary circumstances has always been fascinating. Some of us are intellectual center. Some of us are emotional center. Some of us are action center. They'll act now and ask questions later. And I always find that spot, a sweet spot to be in for character. And for me, good action moves the narrative. It's like in a good musical, the guy doesn't just start singing. It's by the end of the song that you realize he wants to be with the girl and he's just going to defy his parents.

16:37And so it's moved the narrative along. So something needs to happen in Nemesis or take New Jack City when proverbial hits the fan and the wedding gets attacked. Nino Brown grabs up the little girl as a bulletproof flak vest. And so it was in that moment that the audience was like, oh, wow. That's, at the end of the day, that's what this guy will do. Versus the Ice-T character who brings the little girl to safety. I know for a fact, because I've talked to him about this, is that Michael Mann was, Sweetback was a big influence on that. And you could actually, the character in Thief sounds like Sweetback, the way his philosophy about how he's going through the world sounds like sweet back to me.

17:21And so as they're talking about the way these worlds kind of all echo each other and the way one filmmaker is influenced by another, I can see that him being influenced by both your father and by you. Talking about a trippy circle of knowledge. So my father, when he was in Paris, as you know, became a journalist for a while, taught himself French, and they assigned him to interview a young guy from America who was Malcolm X. So Melvin interviews Malcolm X. And years later, I wind up playing Malcolm X in the movie Ali with Will Smith. And Malcolm X's eldest daughter, Ms. Shabazz, wound up working with me to humanize the portrayal of her father.

18:02And my two daughters wound up playing Malcolm's daughters in the movie, yes. And so we're on the set. And Brother Muhammad Ali would come down. He would clown me. He'd go, Van Peoples, if you were any smarter, I'd enjoy your company. And he'd clown me and he said, he was the one that said, if you could make a film about arguably the first overt Black Power athlete, meaning himself, meaning Ali, because we're working in the film Ali, could you make a film about the first overt Black Power film director, meaning Melvin? And I thought, wow. And then Michael Mann said, your dad's film Sweetback was one of the first movies I took my date to.

18:44His wife, when he was married, he took her on a date to see Sweetback. Correct. Took her to see Sweetback. And he said, it was the first time I saw a movie where the audience reacted like they were reacting to a boxing match. And he said, listen, if you do decide to make a movie on your dad and you want, I'll produce it. So when I went to see Dad, I said, oh, man. So I went to see Dad. I got on a plane, went to see Dad. It was burning in my head. I go to see Melvin. And he knows when you got a big ask. He's got that look. You know he's got the look with the cigar. So he's looking at me like this, like this.

19:13like on my shirt right here. So I said, let me tell you this line. You know, Muhammad Ali brought black power to the ring. Melvin Van Peebles brought black power to the screen. You know, it's time to tell your story. So dad looks at me like, time for who to tell what story? I said, dad, your book, The Making of Sweetback. And he said, listen, Muhammad Ali thinks it's a great idea. Michael Mann will produce it and I'll direct it. And he said, look, he said, someone does my story when I'm dead and I screw it up. I won't know the difference, but you do when I'm alive and you screw it up. And I ain't shy.

19:48I don't care who you are. So finally at the end, he says, okay, you played Malcolm. Now play Melvin, but do your film independently the way I did Sweetback because I don't want Hollywood making notes on my life. And he said this. The only note was, don't make me too damn nice, which was his way of saying, tell the truth, all of it. And so the circle on exactly right of the connection, how we all inspire and come back and, you know, the Malcolm of it all and Michael Mann of it all and connecting back into it. And I would even argue, if you look at Sweetback, if you look at some of the films that came later, the way Shaft came and Superfly and the use of music and radio.

20:32And then look at what Michael Mann does in Miami Vice with the Phil Collins song and what he does in Heat with the music. It's a third character. His use of music, I would say, is almost from that same energy. Right? Oh, absolutely. Leave it to Mario Van Peebles to end the conversation in such a provocative way that he's making me crazy. But it only means you have to come back and do the show again. It's been such a pleasure having you here. Thank you. I love it, man. Thank you. Bye.

21:09Mario Van Peebles has acted with directors such as Clint Eastwood, Michael Mann, and his father, the late and legendary Melvin Van Peebles. He also played his father in the film Badass, which Mario wrote and directed. Mario also directed the crime drama New Jack City. Most recently, he's a producer-director of the crime drama series Nemesis, now on Netflix. Previous conversations with talents keeping the family storytelling tradition alive, such as actor, director Mariska Hargitay at the archive kcrw.com slash thetreatment. At kcrw.com slash thetreat, there's our ongoing series on how creators find the spark of inspiration.

21:57This week is the Emmy-winning actor-writer Richard Gad on a duo whose physical comedy carried an emotional charge. The Treatment is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist to better days, everyone. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.