Cuba Gooding, Jr. Q&A: Daddy Day Camp

AUGUST 8, 2007—Showing Cuba Gooding, Jr. the money probably was the worst thing to happen to the Jerry Maguire Oscar winner.

Gooding seemed to make one bad choice after another in the years following his electrifying turn as pro-footballer Rod Tidwell. Rather than try to build upon his breakthrough performances in Boyz N the Hood and Jerry Maguire, Gooding instead elected to make a slew of mediocre thrillers (Chill Factor, End Game, Instinct, A Murder of Crows) and embarrassing comedies (Boat Trip, The Fighting Temptations, Snow Dogs) that overshadowed the fine work he did in Dirty and Men of Honor.

After seemingly swearing off comedies, Gooding’s attempting a comeback of sorts that’s predicated on again trying to make audiences laugh. Hot on the heels of starring opposite Eddie Murphy in Norbit, Gooding replaces Murphy in the new Daddy Day Care sequel, Daddy Day Camp.

Building on his recent dramatic turns in the little-seen Dirty and Shadowboxer, Gooding will join Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s crime saga American Gangster. He’s also completed two thrillers, Hero Wanted and Linewatch, and is about to shoot the high school comedy Harold.

Gooding spoke with me about inheriting the Daddy Day Care franchise from Eddie Murphy, being directed by The Wonder Years’s Fred Savage, and trying to put his post-Oscars mistakes behind him.

Why replace Eddie Murphy as Charlie Hinson in Daddy Day Camp?
I don’t do sequels to my own films, let alone Eddie Murphy’s. I’m not in that business. But when I read the script, it not only had heart, but it also explored a troubled father-son relationship and the healing process. My father (singer Cuba Gooding) and I were estranged after my mother split. So it hit home, and because of that issue being in the script, it didn’t feel like a sequel or a re-imagining [of Daddy Day Care]. It made a really a fresh statement. In fact, we joked on a set that if we did another sequel, it would have to be called Daddy Day Camp II.

Granted, Charlie Hinson isn’t as beloved or iconic as Axel Foley, but how tough was it for you take possession of an character already established by Murphy?
I was invited to participate in a page-1 rewrite. I’m telling you, everything changed, including references to the first movie. There’s jokes about Star Trek in the first movie. When we were filming, I didn’t get why we had this Star Trek joke. I was told it was in reference to the jokes in the first movie. But it wasn’t funny, and I had the complete freedom to remove it. So this process helped the character speak to me.

You worked with Murphy on Norbit. Did you ask for his blessing to take over the franchise?
I got the offer [for Daddy Day Camp] during the last week of shooting Norbit. But I read the script when we finished Norbit. I asked the obvious question about why Eddie passed on it—it was a scheduling thing. But I never felt the need to call Eddie and ask for his OK to do it. It was a wonderfully told story, so I had to be involved in it.

What did you first think when you heard The Wonder Years’s Fred Savage was in the running to direct Daddy Day Camp?
When I was given the list of directors, he was among the first of three I agreed to see. I had some resistance. I wanted a feature director, not someone from TV. We brought in him, and at the end of the two-and-a-half meeting, I felt he was more like a director than an actor. He was the best choice. Watching him work with the kids, you could tell how much attention he paid to what was going on on the set, as he knew what they were going through. [The child actors] did not understand the rehearsal process, or that you had to shoot things time and time again. And there were times when we had to do off-camera dialogue, and they wouldn’t be paying attention or they would be picking their nose. He helped them stay focused.

You told the New York Times last year that, “I thought people wanted me to make them laugh. But I was wrong on so many levels.” That statement was clearly made in reference to such career-threatening comedies as Boat Trip, Rat Race, and Snow Dogs. What made you change your mind about doing another comedy so soon after making that statement?
I had been introduced on film in Boyz N the Hood, which had a very heavy subject matter. I had a lot of success with Men of Honor, Radio and definitely Jerry Maguire, which also had a lot of seriousness to my performance. I tried to tackle comedy with Snow Dogs and Boat Trip … and then I tackled a couple films with a lot of heavy material, including Dirty and Shadowboxer. It really brought stillness to me. When I did that interview, I was still in a period of discovery, at where I was in my career, what position I was in, and what roles were available. I’m blessed to be able to go back and forth [between comedy and drama], and that’s the product of doing work in both areas. The movie that made me become an actor was Superman. How beautiful was Marlon Brando and what would have been his take on his role [as Superman’s father] had he been 27? The older you get, the more you realize your job is to entertain. I can be a court jester, but I’m also comfortable doing different roles.

You also told the New York Times that, “As a commercial entity, I know my stock is low.” How do you think Norbit, Daddy Day Camp and your upcoming films will change this?
It’s like writing a book—you don’t know if people will read it. My job is go to work and it’s someone else’s job to evaluate it. The producers of The Wizard of Oz might have thought it failed when it was released, but now it’s a classic. I don’t want to put that onus on how my career’s going to go—I want to find new ways to do my work. I’m working now. I have four films in the can, and I’m about to start working on two movies, including Harold, which I’m producing and starring in.

What is Hero Wanted about?
Hero Wanted, which is with Ray Liotta, touches on the psychology of instant celebrity. We don’t know the background of these people. Rodney King took a beating, people praised him, and then he turned out to have an interesting past. I also did a film with [All About the Benjamins director] Kevin Bray, Linewatch, about a border patrol officer. It’s another physical movie, so I’ve followed one edgy thriller with another.

What stands out the most to you about winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Jerry Maguire?
It’s like when you win a radio all-you-can-grab giveaway. You don’t stop and think—you just throw all the shit you can in the cart. I was given so many awards, and the Oscar was the crème de la crème. I went on a European tour with Tom Cruise, flying in a private jet. The commercials kept coming. I was just running with it. It wasn’t until three or four years later that the heat started to wane and the box office potential waned, that I realized how many opportunities I didn’t capitalize on. It took a while to come off that high. I liked being in the eye of the storm, and there were so many people coming in and out of my life. It was a whirlwind. And it was tough on my wife. She would come home followed by the paparazzi.

Is there such a thing as an Oscar curse? Or is that just a lazy and convenient way for some actors to explain why their careers have cooled off in the years after winning an Academy Award?
Curse is inappropriate. When I think of that, of think of something supernatural. It suggests there are forces beyond our control. It does force a rift in the production of work from an actor wins. An actor celebrates his success. It’s a time to reflect. Hollywood decides what the win means as far as your quote goes. And there’s a real tangible risk to the process. You know, you read a script that’s brilliant. But it takes a year or two before the film goes into production. So if you don’t read a script for eight months, it’s going take two years before your next film hits the screen.

How do you think your win paved the way for such other Academy Award-winning African-American actors as Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Hudson, Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker? With Hudson and Whitaker’s win this past year, it almost seems as though Oscar voters have finally seen past the color of the nominee’s skin.
It’s nice to be among a handful of African Americans who have been recognized for their work, but when it comes to starring in a colossal tent-pole movie, there is still a short list of black actors who are acceptable as a leading man. The Academy changed its tune because … sexually and racially, it’s has a different complexion. That’s what’s brought about the open-mindedness. The Academy’s no longer just made up of elite members of the film community with a certain mindset on voting for their peers. The face of the Academy has changed. It would be interesting to see a survey how ethically and sexually diverse the Academy now is. But the criteria of what is a good performance has changed; it’s no longer what’s the race or sexuality of the person.
This interview was previously posted Aug. 8, 2007 on Film South Florida.com.

Shia LaBeouf Q&A: Transformers

JUNE 7, 2007—Shia LaBeouf doesn’t have time to get the summertime blues.

Hot on the heels of the Rear Window-inspired Disturbia comes two potential summer blockbusters that could make LaBeouf one of Hollywood’s most sought-after young stars.

In the CG-animated Surf’s Up (June 8), LaBeouf voices a penguin desperate to become a champion surfer. He’ll then try to save mankind from malevolent shape-changing robots in Transformers (July 3), director Michael Bay’s big-budget attempt to turn the toy line into a film franchise.

During his March trip to Miami to promote Disturbia, LaBeouf shared his thoughts on:

Growing up on Transformers
That’s the male Barbie of my generation. That and G.I. Joe.

What sets Transformers apart from his other big-budget endeavors, Constantine and I, Robot
For me, it’s a huge change. It’s the first one I’m starring in. I’m No. 1 on the call sheet. I, Robot, I was barely in. I was only there because Will [Smith] personally asked for me. It wasn’t like Transformers, where I’m a die-hard fanatic before I show up on set, where I can’t wait to see Bumblebee like the next guy. There are few franchises in general where you can walk into a tattoo shop and see someone get a Decepticons logo on their back. There are few followings that are that loyal. People are loyal to Transformers—my age, your age, it’s a huge generational gap. And the reason it’s different, when you think about a dude in a cape, a guy in a Spider-Man costume, they’re great ideas, historical ideas, but is it really tangible? Realistic? Is somebody really going to save me in a cape? Do you really want to be saved by that guy? Do I want him to hold me as we fly through the sky? No. Whereas something like Transformers, technology taking over humanity is a real idea. Look at the war now in Iraq, where we’re using robots to pick up bombs, we’re using robots to drop bombs. It’s all robotic. It’s like a realistic thought. Cars do transform. They transform into submarines. I went to JPL (The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) to look at some of this stuff on the Mars Rover mission. That thing is humongous. You don’t think it’s as big as it as, and it can do everything. It’s self-sustaining. It doesn’t need a recharge. These things have lives. So that blew my mind.

Transformers’ stressful shoot
It was tough. We shot it in 80 days. Pirates they shot in 340. To put it in perspective, Pirates has six or seven set pieces. In Hollywood talk, that’s big action sequences. We have 15 or 16. Eighty days is nothing. But [director] Michael Bay moves like a machine. The dude’s a monster.

Working with Transformers director Michael Bay
He’s a perfectionist. He’s completely prepared. He knows everybody’s job. He’s an adrenaline junkie. There are things he could have done on green screen. They hung me off of a building—the Orpheum Theatre—about 40 stories up. Then they blew the building up. You could have done that on green screen. But we didn’t do it that way. Mike doesn’t work that way. He likes to blow stuff up. He likes to build robots. He likes to make a bumblebee you can sit there and talk with for real. He’s a robot and he’s 40 feet tall.

The physical demands of making Transformers
I was running 20 miles a day it felt like. Every day was running and screaming, running and screaming, and running and screaming, and explosions. On Disturbia, we shot the car crash at the beginning of the movie in two or three days. A Transformers set moves like this: you’ll show up, you’ll do your hair and makeup, you’ll go to set, they’ll blow a car up, then they’ll light 25 guys on fire, they’ll drop a helicopter, they’ll blow up the Orpheum Theater, then they’ll have a robot walk the streets, they’ll shut the streets down, and they’ll blow the streets up. This is all before lunch with no rehearsal. It’s just a different set.

Transformers meeting audience expectations
It’s just a crazy movie, man. It’s just the sickest film of the year. I’ll put it to you like this way: Optimus’ arm has 15,000 moving pieces that all conjoin into a Rubik Cube-like arm. ILM, the company that did the graphics, did Pirates. ILM is the graphics king…. They said they never did anything like this. It’s going to do what The Matrix did for action films. It’s just going to blow people’s minds.

Surf’s Up arriving so soon after Happy Feet
Look at the traits of animation. A Bug’s Life and Antz. Shark Tale and [Finding] Nemo. You can’t copy a movie. It’s not like we copied [Happy Feet]. These movies take four years to make. It’s impossible to copy. The fact that there’s so much penguin action right now is kinda weird. It’s like Kismet. But I think the reason for that is that the penguin is the most human bird. It kinda looks like they’re wearing tuxedos. They hang out in packs like humans, and they’re social birds. So there’s a fun thing to play with there. People like penguins. But again, animation is not a genre. It’s a type of film. Comparing us to Happy Feet is like comparing Rent to Spinal Tap. It’s two different genres. It’s the same type. Every movie made on 35mm is not the same film. Every movie made in animation is not the same film.

What separates Surf’s Up from other animated films
Surf’s Up is more dramatic than most animated films. There’s a really dramatic storyline. And it’s a mockumentary. The tagline is, “Based on a true story.” That’s our thing. It’s like set up like The Real World, where you have these interviews [in front of] the camera. It’s very human, so the comedy works in a different way. It’s not slapstick—chicken falls, scraps his leg, ha, ha, ha. It’s not that at all.
This interview was previously posted June 7, 2007 on Film South Florida.com.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo Q&A: 28 Weeks Later

MAY 10, 2007—Even though it didn’t deal with the undead, 28 Days Later was extremely influential in reviving the zombie horror subgenre. So it was inevitable that the murderous hordes of director Danny Boyle’s 2003 chiller—the victims of a virus known as the rage—would once again overrun the streets of England.

In 28 Weeks Later, the infected are dead and the crisis appears to be over. But just as the U.S. military is beginning the long process of repopulating London, another outbreak of the virus starts to spread among the survivors. The key to a vaccine appears to lie with a young boy, assuming he can make it out of London without being killed by his infected father (Robert Carlyle).

Boyle, whose next film is the upcoming sci-fi epic Sunshine, choose to sit out 28 Weeks Later. Stepping in is Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the Spanish-born director of the acclaimed thriller Intacto.

I spoke with Fresnadillo, during a recent visit to Miami, about making a sequel that stands on its own merits, the ramifications of 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy’s decision not to make a cameo in 28 Weeks Later, and laying the groundwork for a third film in the series.

Given 28 Days Later‘s success, what pressure did you feel making this sequel?
When dealing with a sequel, you have the first movie chasing you. So, to me, it was important when I talked with Danny Boyle to hear these words: “I love Intacto, I need you to make a new movie with a personal vision. We need fresh eyes. London needs to be seen through different eyes.” That was fantastic. That removed the pressure I would feel from the first movie. I love the first one, but I needed to start over. It was a challenge, but the concept of reconstruction, the rebuilding process, is one that is close to my heart.

So was it a relief when [28 Days Later star] Cillian Murphy turned down an offer to make a cameo in 28 Weeks Later? His appearance certainly would have brought with some unwanted baggage from 28 Days Later.
The producer understood we needed to make our own story, without characters from the first movie or any references to them. The only link is the infection, the rage. Fortunately, from the very beginning, we agreed to start from zero. It made sense to create new characters with the concept of reconstruction.

You seem to pay as much attention to developing the characters as you do in advancing the action.
The relationships are the heart of the story. I always believe that an apocalyptic thriller needs characters that are real. Otherwise it is not interesting. I need the audience to feel for the characters under these horrific circumstances.

Did you intend to draw parallels between the U.S. military’s presence in London in the film and its presence in Iraq?
The intention with the military was to follow a real procedure. We did a lot of research to see what would happen in a situation like this. We show in the movie a true reconstruction. But when you’re trying to control a situation like this…. I can understand why the general’s plan is to destroy everything, which might be too much, and why a sniper would abandon his position to help people survive this destruction. Every human reacts in a different way regardless of whether they are a soldier. I want to give this a human face more than make a political argument. You see Robert Carlyle abandon his wife [when she’s cornered by the infected]. I love to put people in difficult situations and force them to take a position in a split second. These are decisions that affect the whole world. It’s scary and it’s real. So I can understand why people connect the events in the movie to what’s happening in the world at this time. When you bring a sense of reality to a movie like this, it becomes a mirroring to what’s really going on. But I also hope it’s an entertaining movie that people enjoy.

28 Days Later ended optimistically. 28 Weeks Later ends pessimistically. Was this done intentionally to make way for a third film?
When we shopped it around, we did not think about [the possibility] of making a third part. We’re tracking the concept of people out of control, the isolation of human beings, preservation. That’s why the ending makes sense. I understand that people will find it a link for the next chapter. If they decide to make another one, that means the movie worked.

Would you like to be involved?
I wouldn’t participate in another movie. Much in the same way that Danny was generous to let me direct [28 Weeks Later], I should do the same way and let someone else direct.
This interview was previously posted May 10, 2007 on Film South Florida.com.

Ice Cube Q&A: Are We Done Yet?

APRIL 3, 2007—It’s not enough Ice Cube’s prized Lincoln Navigator was turned into scrap metal in Are We There Yet?

In Are We Done Yet?, Ice Cube’s Nick Persons endures even more bumps and bruises after discovering his dream house in the suburbs is nothing but a dilapidated money pit. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong as Nick sinks his life savings—and risks life and limb—into putting a roof over the heads of his pregnant wife (Nia Long) and his stepchildren (Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden).

This sequel to Ice Cube’s 2005’s family-friendly road trip from hell was originally conceived as a remake of Cary Grant’s post-World War Two farce, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. During a recent trip to Miami, the rapper-turned-actor discussed retooling Mr. Blandings as Are We Done Yet? and shared his thoughts on:

Whether making a family film such as Are We Done Yet? means the founding member of gangsta rap group N.W.A. has lost his edge
Everybody’s got their own opinions of it. My thing is, there’s a time and a place for everything. No one’s harder than a bullet anyway, so how hard can you really be? I’m always being myself. I’ve never not been myself. I’ll leave it at that. I don’t worry about being hard. I’m not an image. I’m myself. I’m not trying to be an image. I’m just trying to be who I am. I’m cool with that. And if my critics don’t like it, so what?

Turning a Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House remake into a sequel to Are We There Yet?
They had approached me to do Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and we was working on that script to get it right, and as we started looking at it, it was a guy with a wife and a kid, in a small apartment, moving to a house that kind of terrorizes him. Are We There Yet? had done so good, and Mr. Blandings, nobody in this generation knows about that movie…. We just felt it was smart. Why sit and write a sequel and have two movies that were similar? The guy with a new wife and kids, it just matched up so good to just flip the story. You’ll be so surprise how easy it was to convert that script into [Are We Done Yet?]. Adding little touches that you remember from the first movie. But for me, it was a no-brainer. It was perfect. More kids know about Are We There Yet? than they do about Mr. Blandings.

How to make a successful sequel
I never want to harp on the first movie. I never really want to mention the first movie too much when we’re doing the sequel. I always go at it that the movie I’m making has to stand on its own, whether you’ve seen any of the other ones. Whether you have seen the first Friday or the second Friday, Friday After Next still has to hold up as a movie by itself. And that’s how I always look it. We do Barbershop. Barbershop 2, regardless of whether you have seen Barbershop, you have to be able to sit there and not harp too much on the first movie. Just go out and make another movie.

Working for a fourth time with Nia Long following Boyz n the Hood, Friday, and Are We There Yet?
I like working with Nia Long. She’s not only a great actress, no matter how big or small the part is, she always brings her A game. She could play any kind of woman. I know if we give her a lot to do, she’s going to give us a lot. If we give her a little to do, she’s going to do a lot with that little. She never takes a day off, and nothing is too big or too small for her. People like to see in movies.

Whether animating the opening and closing credits of Are We Done Yet? has inspired Ice Cube make a full-length animated film
We would like to do animation. The animation process is crazier than making a movie. We’ve got to lock in on the project two or three years before it comes out. We just ain’t put any effort into that because we’re still trying to make the movies we want to make. Sooner or later, we’ll get into that. I want to do animation for the big screen. It will come.

Working in Hollywood
I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable out there. Each project, it seems like it takes a miracle to get made. Everybody in Hollywood’s got their own agenda. Sometimes you can show, “Y’all, we’ve been making money, you need to do this movie with us.” But they’ve got other movies they want to make. And there’s so much money in the kitty. So you never get to where whatever you drop on the desk, they say, “Cube, your last one worked, you’ve got it.” They always run you through the wringer, no matter what movie you’re doing. We’ve always got 14 or 15 projects in different states of development, and whichever looks like is going work, that’s the one we’re put our energy behind to get green lit. That’s the hardest thing to do, to get the studio to say, “OK, we’re going to do your movie,” sign on the line, checks start to roll. I don’t think I’ll ever get comfortable because the process is too unknown. It’s always, “We’re got this good script; let’s see who’s down to make it.” That’s always going to be the process.

Maintaining creative control over his film and music projects
I really try to keep as much control as possible. My music is really my show—I can do anything I want. I’ve never had anyone from a label tell me to do anything. I say I’m going to make a record, and I like it like that. Movies, it’s a team. You’ve got to be more of a team player. I delegate the duties and get people to step up to the plate, to do what they do best, to do what you hired them for. You can’t really do it all. I try to orchestrate the whole situation, and I really try to put my touch on it, especially if it’s a Cube Vision [Ice Cube’s production company] movie.

Choosing film projects
We’ve had more success with projects that we’ve been control of than we had success with just acting in or jumping on other people’s projects. We want to have as much control as they will give us as producers, because we feel we know what to do, at least for my audience. If we have script approval, if we definitively have a producing say in it, if they got the money I’m looking for, those are the things that really make me lean toward doing the film. Of course, the script’s got to be dope, but that goes without saying. But after the script’s is dope, the other things we try to get to. With Barbershop, that movie was brought to our company. We took it and we refined the script and produced it and made it into what you’ve seen. We were more involved with the second one.

His work ethic
I just have an unquenchable creative thirst. I’m never satisfied. When we’re done with a project, when we go to the premiere, I’m really done with it; I’m on to the next one. I never really sit on what’s been done. It’s always, what are we doing tomorrow? Creating a movie is the biggest canvas you can have. Being able to do what you can do in a movie, I just love to put them together. I love to create on that level. And I love to do music. I can say more from my heart with music just because with a movie, there are so many more people involved with the finished product.

His next film
We’re got this movie called First Sunday that hopefully I’ll be doing with Mike Epps. It’s about us robbing a church. We’re a little fed up with how the church is treating my grandmother. The church has sucked up from the community and hasn’t really given back and is planning to move to a bigger Evangelist-type thing, and we kind of fed up. We’re like, “Ya’ll been for all these years, you’ve sucked up all this from the community, the community really needs you and you’re doing nothing.” We redeem the church; they redeem us.

His favorite film roles and albums
I have a few favorites. I’ve got to say Boyz n the Hood; [The] Players Club, because it’s a movie I wrote and directed; Friday, because of what it’s turned out to be and how much fun it turned out to be. Albums, it would have to be Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Death Certificate, and the new one, Laugh Now, Cry Later.

One of his least favorite film roles, John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars
If it was done in 1979, the movie would be great. But I was really mad about the special effects, and I felt like I just didn’t want to be part of the movie. I was really upset about that movie. We shot most of our parts without the special effects. They let you know that the special effects are going to be good, then you get it and it’s like some cheesy shit you’d seen in the 1970s. What the hell was this? That’s probably one of my worse films for me. But it’s a trip—some dudes who are into sci-fi stuff, they think that stuff is great. I look at them like they’re crazy. I just say, “Have you ever seen The Matrix?” Look at ours—come on please.

His failed bid to replace Vin Diesel in xXx: State of the Union
I really can’t out my finger on that one. All I know is, the studio really harped on the first one. They really didn’t want us to do any promotion. They thought the brand was strong enough to just [win over] the fans. I always felt it was a marketing mistake not to get me, Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe out there saying, you know, we have a better movie than the first. We didn’t get the chance to do, and I think the movie suffered at the box office for that. But you know, you can look at that in a couple of ways. I used to look at box office a lot; now I look at people’s reaction. When you sit and watch a movie, you don’t care how much money it made. You want to like it. You want to enjoy it as an individual, and whether it’s made $100 million or $100, that’s meaningless to the person who’s watching it at the time they are watching it. All I care about is people’s individual reaction—“I liked you in this, that one could have been better.” I let that hold more weight than looking at the box office.

Black, White, the Ice Cube-produced FX reality series about two families—one black, the other white—who traded races through make-up
I felt good about it. TV is new to us. We was going into it and really seeing what it was. We had dealt with cable a little bit with the Barbershop Showtime [series], which we were in control of like we were with the movie, but we did have a say in it. I wish we had had more of a say in it, but it is what it is. This is our second time dealing with cable, and how they flow. It was interesting little hook-up, and I would do it again. As far as coming up with another second, they got too much heat from the first one. I think [FX] got scared. They don’t want to go that political anymore. It was a good series to me, but I think it was a bit much for the network.

Barbershop’s criticism of Jesse Jackson, and the subsequent—but failed—boycott of the comedy by Jackson and Al Sharpton
Shit, man, we was light compared to a real barber’s shop. Shit, ours was an after-school special compared to what people in a real barber’s shop say. Jesse [Jackson] was lucky we did a movie because we was able to take it easy on him. If we went with a camera in a real barbershop’s and said, “Hey, what do you think of this one, and that one,” and you really get to feel their pains, his feelings would really have been hurt. People got to take it in stride. All these political figures—Jesse, Al [Sharpton], and all of them—they’re been in a barber’s shop. They know what’s going on. So that’s why I just look at them and go, “Ya’ll know. Ya’ll know. Y’all just trying to get some money out of [Barbershop distributor] MGM, but ya’ll know what the deal is. We weren’t on hard on you.”

This interview was previously posted April 3, 2007 on Film South Florida.com.