Fresh Air - Best Of : Jane Fonda / Spike Lee

Episode Date: September 6, 2025

At 87, Oscar-winning actor Jane Fonda is pouring her energy into activism. She’ll reflect on her decades-long career, and how she first began her fitness empire to fund her activist work. Also, we hear from  Spike Lee. His latest film, Highest 2 Lowest, reimagines Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, but through the lens of modern-day America and hip-hop culture. Both guests spoke with Tonya Mosley.  Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Jane Fonda, at 87, the Oscar-winning actor is pouring her energy into activism. She'll reflect on her decades-long career and how she first began her fitness empire to fund her activist work. Also, we hear from Spike Lee. His latest film, Highest to Lowest, reimagines Akira Kurosawa's 1963 classic, High and Low. But through the lens of modern-day America and hip-hop culture, Denzel Washington stars as a powerful music mogul whose life unravels when kidnappers

mistakenly hold his friend's son ransom instead of his own. The story becomes a tense moral dilemma. Does he risk everything to save a child who isn't his? That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply.

This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. Tanya Mosley has today's first interview. Here's Tanya. My guest today is Jane Fonda. When she accepted the SAG After Lifetime Achievement Award back in February, she used the moment to sound an alarm. Empathy is not weak or woke, she told the room, urging her peers to use their platforms for good.

Have any of you ever watched a documentary of one of the great social movements like apartheid or our civil rights movement or stonewall and ask yourself, would you have been brave enough to walk the bridge? Would you have been able to take the hoses and the batons and the dogs? We don't have to wonder anymore because we are in our documentary moment. Six months later, I'm talking with Fonda,

not about a new film or project, but about the path brought her to that speech. Born in 1937 into one of Hollywood's most famous families, Fonda came of age when women were expected to be seen, but not outspoken. Through the decades, Fonda found her voice, first on screen, where she went on to win two Academy Awards. In 1971 for Clute, playing a New York City call girl trying to leave sex work and pursue an acting career, and in 1978 for coming home, portraying a military wife whose husband ships off to Vietnam. Fonda's career and life choices have rarely been predictable. In the 80s, she became an unexpected

fitness mogul. Her first workout tape remains the number one selling home video of all time. And through the decades, she's chosen to live a life of resistance, marching against the Vietnam war, supporting civil rights and Native American activists, and more recently as an environmental activist. In 2019, she held weekly climate demonstrations on Capitol Hill, where she was arrested five times. Jane Fonda, welcome back to fresh air. It's good to be back. I initially wanted to talk with you six months ago after the SAG Aftera Award ceremony where you won the Lifetime Achievement Award, but I couldn't get you till now, so yes, I'm happy to have you here. Thank you. But that speech, the timing of it. It came one month after the inauguration. And there's something else you said in it. I want to read this quote. A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way. And even if they're a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent because we're going to need a big tent to resist what is coming at us.

who were you thinking about when you wrote those lines? Oh, I was thinking about all the people that live in the middle of the country, you know, what's called flyover country, people who used to belong to unions that work jobs that paid enough to buy a house and send your children to high school and college, and that's gone for them. When the rug has been pulled out from under you like that, you know, where does your sense of self, your sense of meaning,

your self-respected. It's very hard, and you're going to be very angry. You know, my dad came from Nebraska, from Omaha, and I've walked precincts in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio, and, you know, people are really angry and they're really hurting. And so they voted a certain way. Seventy-eight million Americans did. All of them are not MAGA, you know. And when they realize that what they voted for has turned against them, that it's not what they thought, that prices are going to go up, health care, they're going to not be able to afford the medical care that they need and the food that they need and so on.

You know, they're going to be looking for alternatives. And I think those of us, well, a lot of us in America have alternatives to offer. And we have to not judge, but we have to put forward a vision of what we think America should be. Do you feel like it's your duty at this age, 87 years old, to say these things, to speak, to still be an activist? Because, I mean, you could be off on an island somewhere just living. People say that. I don't understand how, I mean, I can't even imagine right now being on an island someplace. You know, there's a book I want to write, but when I write, I go inward. This is not the time to go inward. We have to go out. We have to speak. We have to. We have to. We

We have to shout. We have to find nonviolent ways to avoid what's happening, which is we're very, very close to becoming fascist in this country. I never, ever imagined that that would be the case. But it's beginning to happen, and we have to find ways to stop that. Today, one of the things that you're focused on among many issues. I'm focused on one thing. Well, actually, two things, saving our democracy and confronting the climate crisis and they go together. They're totally interdependent. We can't solve one without the other. You can't have a stable democracy with the unstable climate. You can't have a stable climate without a stable democracy. And they'll be solved together. In 2019, you were arrested

five times. That's no big deal. My beloved friend Martin Sheen has been arrested 72 times. And I'm famous. Yes. You know what I mean? And I'm a privileged person. They don't treat me the way They would, if I did exactly the same thing and I was black, it would not be the same. And it wouldn't probably be the same now. If I got arrested now, it would probably be for five years, you know. Would you still be willing to put yourself on the line to do that? I don't know right now because I think that what I'm doing with my Jane Fonda Climate Pack is important enough for me to be sure. I don't go to jail for five years.

I have to keep doing this. This is important. focusing with my PAC, down ballot, that is to say, governors, mayors, city councils, state legislators, county executive, state and local, building a firewall. Because this is where the real climate and democracy work is being done right now on the state and local level. You know, Jane, you're kind of the most visible activist of your generation. But do you think that your generation also, to a certain extent, bore some responsibility for the moment that we're in? Yeah, I do.

It's called neoliberalism. A lot of so-called democratic leaders for the last decades, but particularly starting in the 80s, moved to corporate liberalism. You know, so that the Democratic Party seems to be touting to its donors and moving to the middle, which is not what we need to be doing. Okay, little known fact about your fitness empire.

You actually recorded that first tape because you were trying to fund your activism. Well, my second husband and I had started a statewide organization called the Campaign for Economic Democracy. The war had ended and we began to focus on the economic inequality that exists in this country. So we focused on that. It was the beginning of the very apparent takeover of much of our economy. by corporations, including agriculture. And a light bulb went off. I have to start a business.

And it took us about a year to figure out what it should be, and it turned out it was the workout. So the money went to the campaign for economic democracy. We're listening to Tanya Mosley's interview with Jane Fonda. She's a two-time Oscar-winning actor, a best-selling author, fitness pioneer, and activist. We'll hear more of their conversation. After a short break, I'm Terry.

gross and this is fresh air weekend. Support for NPR and the following message come from the estate of Joan B. Croc, whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help NPR be the model for high-quality journalism in the 21st century. Let's get back to Tanya Mosley's interview with Jane Fonda. In the next part of our conversation, we briefly discuss suicide. If you're having thoughts of suicide, help is. is available by calling or texting 988, which is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Again, the number to call or text is 988.

You had gone through this long period, really all of your life, based on what society had told you, based on what your father, your father, your father used to say some pretty horrible things to you about your body. Yeah, he objectified me, and he objectified women. You know, for all, one of the things that I've really learned is our parents aren't perfect. Our parents have all the weaknesses that all humans have, you know. He wasn't perfect, but he was a good man. He had good values, and he did his best. And so I, you know, I don't feel anger or anything. That's the way men of that generation thought about women.

When did you come to understand that, that he's of a generation, and he's a good man, but he was a man of his time? When I got older, not as old as I am now. No, I think probably in my 50s and 60s, I made peace with that. After he had passed away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm going to have to pass away before my kids make peace with me, because I certainly have not been a perfect, a perfect parent, but I've done my best.

Oh, it's so interesting because so much. of your life and what you've talked about. When people sit down and talk with you, it's about your relationship between you and your father, Henry Fonda. And then your mother, who passed away when you were 12. Well, she didn't pass away. She killed herself.

Yeah, she died by suicide. Yeah. She was bipolar. Yeah. There's a documentary about your life that came out a few years ago. And in that documentary, your son says, I think my mother's number one, wound, the place by which she moves through the world comes from that original ache and

hurt of losing your mother at 12 years old. But you received this gift later in life. Were you able to read her medical records that gave you a deeper understanding of her? It helped you understand yourself. You know, even as a child, I knew, and I would say to myself, something happened to her, my mother, as a child, because I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that she didn't really love me or my brother, but my brother more than me because she wanted a boy. But when I was writing my memoir, my life so far in the early 2000s, I got a lawyer to get her records from the institution where she was when she killed herself. And among the papers that I got was, she must have been asked to write a little biography of herself.

And I read that. And it turns out that she was sexually abused at age seven. And I could tell reading this document, she'd been a secretary, so she knew how to type small typing, single space, very intense, what it was that had happened to her. I think she had, you know, mental issues. Her father was alcoholic and schizophrenic and paranoid and a problem, but then to have, on top of that being sexually abused had really affected her, yeah. Put me in the time frame of when you were able to get those records. Where were you in life? I was single. Ted Turner, my third husband and I had separated, and I was writing my book. I had asked for five years. I said, don't ask me, you know, I don't want a quick deadline or I'm going to take five years. And I was in

the beginning part of the five years of writing my memoirs. What did that provide for you to learn that information about your mom? I remember when I read it, I was alone in a hotel room, and I started to shake. I got so cold. And I got in bed. covered myself up, and I started crying, and all I wanted to do was take my mother in my arms and hold her and tell her how sorry I was, and that I understood, and then I know she did her best. Yeah. You've been working pretty consistently for the last few decades, but around 91, all the way into the mid-2000s, you retired. You went away from public life.

And although you've talked about it, everybody I talked to says, oh, yeah, what was she doing during that time? I was married to Ted Turner. Yes. I married, from 10 years, from 90 to 2000, you can't be married to Ted Turner and have another job. That's the job. And it's a full-time job. And it was great. And I'm so grateful that I had Ted in my life for 10 years because he's the most interesting, fascinating.

exciting, wonderful guy. This interesting thing has happened to you through your life, though, where there comes a certain point where you outgrow that life. It's like you're becoming more and more Jane as you move through life. Is that a fair way to put it? It's a very astute way. I'm amazed to hear you say that, yes. Yeah. Because you decided to come back to acting after that marriage. Well, I spent five years after the marriage writing my memoir. And at the very end of that writing process, I received a script called Monster in Law.

And my best friend produced it, the late Paula Weinstein, God bless her. And it was a great comeback. Yeah, and you've been working pretty consistently after that. One of the projects you're very proud of is Grace and Frankie, which was a Netflix comedy, which ran for seven seasons, starring you and Lily Tomlin, who you guys have a long history together, I mean, nine to five. We've made three movies together. Yes.

Yeah. In Grace and Frankie, your two women in your 70s, whose husbands, played by Martin Sheen and Sam Watterson, leave the both of you for each other. And it forces you both into this unlikely close relationship. I want to play a scene from the second season. Grace and Frankie are. speaking to their exes and their children about, like, how they feel like they're being mistreated.

And this clip has been edited for time. Lily Tomlin speaks first. Let's listen. You, you turn me into a little old lady who's losing her mind and shouldn't even be allowed to drive. And I'm just a dup who couldn't possibly have any good advice to give. And you, you said you wouldn't hire me because I'd overshadow you. But I gave you the first new idea that Seigrace has had since you took over. We gave you the first idea, and you never acknowledged it.

You took credit for it, and then you threw Frankie to the curve. Mom, you try being in business with her. Well, I might. I will. I am. You are. What yet, we talked about it? Oh, yes, we talked about it. What are we doing?

I'll tell you what we're doing. We're making vibrators for women with arthritis. Yes, vibrators. Brilliant. I highly doubt there's a vibrator market for Jim. Mariatric women with arthritis. There is. I'm in agony.

Seriously, Mom. How do I explain to my children that their grandma makes sex toys for other grandmas? I'll tell you what you can tell them, honey. We're making things for people like us because we are sick and tired of being dismissed by people like you.

Mic drop. Let's go home. That was my guest today, Jane Fonda, with Lily Tomlin on the show, Grace and Frankie. And June, Diane Raphael in there a little bit. wonderful daughter of what has it been like for you playing grace playing this character who has so many different notes at that age that specific age it was great it was fun and you know i'm just in awe of lily tomlin i mean the fact that i got seven years to spend with her i am deeply grateful this woman is a true genius and um it was just a great experience

Martha Kaufman. I'm so grateful for her. She came to us and said, I want to make a series with the two of you. And she did it. She created it. It was fun. It was wonderful. I had a nervous breakdown the first season. Oh, why? I hated the first season. I dreaded going to work every day. And when it was at the end, I thought, well, what am I going to do? I'm either, I'm going to quit the business for good. And I was seriously old then, and I couldn't have. to come back. Or I guess I'll have to go into therapy and figure it out, and I did. What did you figure out? First scene of the first episode, Lily and I, we hate each other. We're at this restaurant

waiting for our husbands, and they arrive, and what do they do? They tell us that they are in love with each other, and they're going to leave us, and they're going to get married to each other. And then the whole rest of the season is about that. How do we recover from that? How do we become friends instead of enemies? And in therapy, what I realized is what it triggered that first episode in me was abandonment. And so the whole season was about dealing with abandonment. And it, I just, it was horrible. And I went into therapy and I figured it out.

And then I fell in love with grace and everything from then on was fine. What an amazing job you have that you're able to work through real life issues through these characters. And you're never too old. You know, I've gone back into therapy now at 87 because I want to figure out why I'm not a better person and why I wasn't a better parent. And I'm figuring it out. Wait, so you weren't in therapy. And it all started when I was 60. Yeah.

When I said, I didn't want to have regrets. I don't want to have regrets. And so I've gone into therapy. So I won't have any regrets. And I'll understand what it was all about. Jane, what do you think it is about you, this quality that you have, that you keep striving? Resilience? Resilience is such an interesting thing.

You know, I think people are born with it. You know, resilience is when a young child who is not getting love at home kind of there's a radar that scanning the horizon. If there's a warm body that maybe could love her or teach her something, you go there. You find love where you can. You find support where you can. That's a resilient child. That was me. But there's also, you know, I mean, the phrases aren't just for anything.

You can't teach an old dog, new tricks. Oh, as you get older, you're set in your ways. Those are all things that like... When Ted and I separated, he said to me, people don't change it's after 60. People don't make new friends after 60. Oh, I'm sorry, that's not true. No, I'm grateful that I have a very vibrant old life. Jane Fonda, this has been such an honor.

Thank you so much for taking this time. Tanya, thank you. Jane Fonda spoke with our co-host, Tanya Mosley. With filmmaker Spike Lee, there are a few guarantees. The story will have something to say, the images will enter the cultural conversation, and he's going to weave in New York every chance he gets. Over 40 years and more than 35 films,

Spikely has captured defining moments in American life, the racial tensions on the hottest day of the year and do the right thing, the sweeping life of Malcolm X, and the devastation and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in when the levees broke. He's given us dramas, comedies, and documentaries that take on power, history, race, and community, and along the way, he's introduced audiences to actors we now can't imagine Hollywood without. Hallie Barry, Rosie Perez, Samuel L. Jackson, and Denzel Washington, to name a few.

His latest, highest to lowest, flips Akira Kurosawa's 1963 classic, high and low, into a modern-day hip-hop drama. Denzel Washington plays a music mogul whose world unravels when his family is pulled into a ransom plot. Spike Lee recently spoke with our co-host, Tanya Mosley. Spike Lee, welcome back to fresh air. Moose, last time I was here.

I know it's been some years. It's been a minute. Look, I'm happy to be here. Let's go. Let's go. Let me tell audiences about this film. So in this film, Denzel Washington plays David King. He owns this record label, this very successful record label, and his son, along with the son of his friend and driver, Jeffrey Wright, is kidnapped for ransom.

And the kidnapper, played by Aesap Rocky, accidentally releases the wrong young man, leaving King and the decision to fork over seven. $17.5 million in France, in Swiss francs. In Swiss francs, for a young man who is not his son. Let's listen to a clip. King David, now ain't this son. Sorry? I got your full attention now, huh? You finally listening to me.

Yeah, I'm listening. Good. You know you got the wrong boy, right? Yeah, so I've heard, and I also learned you can never trust the help. But luckily for me, it was never about the boy. It was always about you. Well, I'm fair enough, but if it's about. me that you can't expect me to pay $17.5 million for somebody else's son if it's about me.

Well, then, his blood is going to be on your hands then. How you want it? No, man, come on, now. This ain't no, negotiation. That's a day of reckoning. You're not God no more than I am. All right? Listen, God give you everything you want, right? No, God give you everything you need. So the question is, what are you need? How can I help you? I ain't saying I'm God, but I could help. That was a scene from Spike Lee's newest film, highest to lowest. Spike, this film wrestles with a couple of different themes, but there's this main question that is being asked, what would you do to save your own child? What would you do to save the child of someone you love? And you've always taken on subjects that kind of move with time, like you're asking a moral question in your work. What was it in particular about this story? reimagining this story that you felt like was so important to tell right now. Well, I'm glad to use the word reimagining, I'd say, reinterpretation,

because I'm running away from the word remake. But Kurosawa's film, the great Kira Kurosawa, who made this film post-war Japan, 1963, is from a book by a writer Ed McBain. And the strength of this film, The strength of the book and Chris Howe's film, it really deals with morality. And when you have an actor, man, in the Japanese version, Tishamafoon, one of the great, great actors. And then with Denzel, who's right there, great actors, when they're going through trials or tribulations, the audience becomes engaged and they're with that person, every step it away.

consequently when I see this film the ones who've seen already they're with Denzel's character David King and they ask themselves what would they do? Right, right.

What would they do in the position that they see on screen that the great magnificent Denzel Washington is in? And it takes star quality. Here's the thing. The reason why people are stars because they have their talent

and the audience is engaged. Yeah. And from the jump, the audience has been engaged with Mr. Denzel Washington. In the original film, in Kurosawa's film, the protagonist is a shoe executive.

Right. And yours, a music mogul. Why did you choose music? It's an interesting. Well, that was, the script went through a hollick for many years. And so when it ended up in Denzel's hands, that changed.

change, have it already been made. So I got a call, Denzel, says, Spike, you got this script. You want to read, say, yeah, send it, FedEx, and before I even hung with the phone, I knew I wanted to do the film, not even knowing, having read what the script was and was about because Denzel didn't describe you, just said, I got a script, I want you to read it, and that's where it happened. It's interesting that that was already the way the script was written when it got to you, and of course, immediately you're like, yes. music is such an integral part of your work.

It's interwoven into your storytelling. Yeah, it's part of the filmmaking. There's this piece of music, though, right off the top. You open with the 1943 Rogers and Hammerstein. Oh, what a beautiful morning from Oklahoma. Right. But the rest of the film is like soul and hip-hop. Is there a story behind you?

Well, I love all types of music. And I remember my mother was a cinephile. My father hated movies, but my mother is a cinephal. I'm the oldest, so I was my mother's movie date because my father hated Hollywood. So she introduced me a whole lot of films. Of course, at the time, I didn't want, I mean, I wouldn't run it. It was a while broken can't run up and down the streets and play stickball, stoop ball, stuff. She says, I'm taking me a little rusty butt.

We're going through the movies, so I don't care what you say. And here's the thing though Every time I don't want to go I don't want to go And then we'll come out at the theater I said mommy that was good So it's just an example

Of kids don't know And when parents take the time Introduced their Stuff the children Who might go kicking and screaming But when they come out of the theater The movie theater or the museum Whatever you know

you can say lies have been changed and I know that's happened to me do you remember one of the movies your mom took you too that really stuck with you all right this is this is a famous one I've said this before so anybody in home who's seen her this before

excuse me my mother love Sean Connery is James Bond 007 and my mother she would she would always want to go through the open and weekend of these films

and the theater was packed and you know those early James Bond films explosions gunplay just just crazy stuff and there was a lull in the film you have to happen you can't do that the whole length of the film you gotta get the audience of breath

you know just some quiet you know and the theater is completely quiet I said to my mother mommy why is that lady why is her name Pussy galore?

The whole thing that I heard that. My mother grow me by the neck and said, don't you wear another thing? What I do? What I do? True story. But

that film came out in 63s. I was born 50. I was six years old. Right. You're like, what's this? I don't know, but it just sounded like a funny name to me. And you still remember to this day.

Hey, I was not the only one that is even a Adults price sense about that name of that character. Ooh, my mother was embarrassed. We're listening to Tanya Mosley's interview with filmmaker Spike Lee. His new movie, Highest to Lowest, reimagines Akira Kurosawa's 1963 classic High and Low. We'll hear more of their conversation after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

Danzel's character has lost his ear, really. Like, he's become so far away from that hungry, artistic guy he was at the beginning of his life. He has a great scene where his wife played by Elfisher Derr says that, you know, she doesn't see the joy anymore. Right. And it's something that I've heard happen often. I mean, sometimes I can feel it. You get to midlife and you feel like this thing that you're so passionate about, there are ebbs and flows. Have you ever been there?

No. You've not You've always had a passion Film? Oh, that's... Look, I can't talk for anybody else But for me, I've never had felt out of love with cinema

Because I tell this to my students My love has always been there Now, there's a business side That's different, but just talking about Making films And I truly believe I was put here To be a storyteller.

So I'll never, you know, you get the BS, but push that aside. It's sometimes going to be a big pile. Right, like how do you not allow yourself to be consumed by all of that stuff you just have to deal with to get to the thing you love so much? Because when you get to the thing, after going on that stuff, you're getting through the thing you love. And to break it down even a little more for my sister in the audience, first day of class, I told my students, and said, I'm lucky. And if you could make a living, doing what you love, you won. I'm actually just thinking about you back when you first came on the scene.

I mean, you came like a lightning bolt. You talk about campaigning for Malcolm X, putting that nicely. I remember the media really portraying you, talking to you a lot about being angry. And I had this debate with my husband about it because I was like, I actually really loved it. I felt like, you know, as a young person being anti-establishment, you felt like... What's your husband to say?

Well, he said, well, I never thought he was angry. I just thought he was confident and knew what he wanted and had a point of view. Right. But what was your assessment? You were kind of tough on the media those early days.

Well, they were tough on me. You know, this belligerent, young rabble-rouser. I mean, when do the right thing came out, you know, as portrayers are racist, and Mookiei threw a garbage can through the South's famous window and jungle fever. I said I was anti-Semitic

because of how they felt the portrayal the two Jewish owners of the club played by the Tataro brothers, Nick and John. So I don't combat that type of criticism as much as I used to, of course, as it died down. But when Do the Right Thing premiered, In Cannes, 1989, American journals were saying that this film was going to cause riots. It's black people riot in the summertime.

And they were pleading to Universal Pictures. If you're going to release the film, don't release the summertime. Because they thought that would be where we'd be all riled up or something. Yeah. It's kind of crazy looking back on that. Like, a film's not going to do that. But if you look at that film really had the crystal ball. you look at the

the killing, the murder of Raid Rahim by the NYPD and the chokehold where that happened. We were talking about global warming a lot of things in that film. You know, what we talked about came to life

in later years. I mean, the sociopolitical message it almost mirrored to a T 2020. That's when everyone was talking about it. Like Radio Rahim became a When I wrote that script in 88, we shot in 89. Look, I'm not happy.

I'm not bragging upon that, but I'm not happy that the stuff you had in the film ended up happening in real life. But it did. The thing about it is, it seems like we didn't have the, we weren't there yet in the 80s and 90s to have a true conversation about it. Came back up in 2020 allowed us to tap into it a little bit. I know what you're saying, sis, but it's, it's. said that people had to die for this to happen.

Yeah. As you mentioned, your mom was deep into movies. Your dad was a jazz musician. You grew up, like, just surrounded by music. A creative household. Creative household. And they often say we, like, love and we are connected to the music that was a coming of age for us.

Like, we are often perpetually stuck in it. But as a creative, like, how do you, view the moving times, the music that we're hearing today without sounding like a fuddy-duddy. Like, can you see that value? I like all the types of music and people complaining about rock and roll back in the day. So I'm not necessarily a purist that, like my father was. I mean, anything that was played with electricity, you know, he was not, he was not with that. He always was tone as is.

Like literally? Like he didn't even like to play records? My father, Bill Lee, was the top folk bassist working. He's on the first Simon and Garfunkel album The first, Gordon Leffield album He played with Judy Collins I mean a whole bunch of people He's on the Bob Dylan album

And when Bob Dylan went electric Everybody went electric And my father used to play Fender Bass He called it tone as is I'm not going to do anything Where electricity is used To amplify the sound

And make it louder And my mother had to go to work Wow If you saw Crooklyn That's real life That actually happened That's the elite family Yeah

And my mother I mean Before my father was working And she was going to Blumentdells And Lord and Taylor You know Every week

But my father I said I'm not doing that I'm not playing Electric Base My mother had to work You know And I saw

I was feeling I was the eldest The 5 I was feeling A certain way About my father Because My mother

Was working And had to cook And clean And Including my myself, my siblings, we were crazy. I mean, we would, when RELS is new, that them bad leaves are coming over, they're like, oh, war, I hope they don't eat up all their food, tear a house up.

That was a real possibility, huh? Well, it happened. Yeah. It happened. So, I felt the way about my father, but then I understood that he's the purest, and my mother supported and loved them, and so she had to work, cook and clean, you know, She's going to do that, and hopefully, God willing, you know, my father would get a break. And the world would see the great musician he was.

And later on, my mother died. He scored my film, my student films, NYU graded at film school, and then she used to have it. Mobile Blues, do the right thing, and the jungle fever. You know, Spike, this is a real treat for me to talk to you. No, the treat is my, it's mutual, my sister. Oh, well, well, I'm happy about that. I think your films are part of like my self-conception, my understanding of who I am and the role that I play in this world.

What's the first film you saw? Oh, so you could have it? No, because I was too young for that, but I saw that later. But the one that really sits with me the most is Malcolm X, and I'll tell you why, because I grew up in Detroit. Deitua? I grew up in Desoit. Detroit Public Schools, the day that your film came out,

They allowed kids to leave school to go see it. And a teacher of mine had us all get on a bus, and we arrived. You got on the bus? We all got on the bus together. I made a movie, too. And we arrived at the theater, and there were lots of other schools there. And there is this moment at the end of the film that I want to play. It is where there are kids in classrooms in the United States, and then on the continent of Africa.

Suedo. Yes. On May 19th, that they designate Malcolm X day. And each student stands up and says, I am Malcolm X. Let's listen to it. May 19th, we celebrate Malcolm X's birthday because he was a great, great Afro-American. And Malcolm X is you, all of you. And you are Malcolm X. I'm Malcolm X. I'm Malcolm X. I'm Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X. I'm Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X.

I am Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X. I am Malcolm X. As Brother Malcolm said, we declare our right on this earth to be a man,

to be a human being, to be given the rights of a human being to be respected as a human being in this society on this earth in this day

which we intended to bring into existence by any mean that was a clip from Spike Lee's 1992 film right Malcolm X.

It makes me emotional to hear it today, but I'll tell you that day I saw it in the theater, when that, by any means necessary, everybody stood up in the theater. They were yelling, they were screaming, they were doing the fist up. The black power of fist. What grade was this, must have said?

Ninth grade. Ninth grade. So first year of high school. Let me tell you the story. I've seen a lot of people, a lot of great people. but to be in a room and direct in the great Nelson Mandela for the end of the movie

and the reason why I chose that because I read that Mr. Mandela who was in prison for 27 years I think on Robin Island he said one of the things that kept him going was autobiography of Malcolm Axis told to Alexie. Alex Hayley

and we're going over the script which is a quote by Malcolm X and he said Spike oh no he said Mr. Lee I cannot say my enemy is necessary but I was I had first of I had the footage

I'm saying this I know I could put that in there but it wasn't until later on I understood that because he was going to run to be president in South Africa Mandala yeah and Afrikanas would use that against him

by means necessary I mean, we're going to kill you white folks. So he was very smart. I didn't protest. I said, it's okay. And also one of those kids that says I'm Malcolm X is John David Washington. Denzel's son.

He's a young, I have to go back and look at it again. Later on, start in my film, Black Klansmen. Yes. How did that idea come about to have the kids stand up and declare that? That classroom scene. It's a homage to the Spartacus, but also it worked also the show that we could do it then. And then the thing is that sequence where kids stand up in the school start to Soweto.

But then it goes to Harlem. Yeah. So I wanted to show the bond between African-Americans and our brothers and sisters who are still. It's a powerful show that. that we are a diaspora. Yes, and also apartheid was still in place. Going back, though, to that time period, you were sort of like responding to the media,

you were responding to them responding to your work and the thoughts that this work would spark something within Black America, but something shifted. There'll be uprising. Right. And so there was a response that you were given to the media during that time that I just really remember feeling so strong. And then something happened with you.

Then you became like the person we see today, like so jovial and so open. Well, I was like that from the beginning. Well, you're talking about the way I was portrayed, which was not now who I was. But I cannot stand silent and say that, I mean, for example, that this film was, of course, black folks to riot. I'm talking specifically about do the right thing. And that film got two nominations. Denny L.O. for Sal. And also, Denzel Washington for Glory.

Well, I saw Glory, and that scene was getting whipped, and that lone tear went down his eye. I thought myself, Danny, you ain't winning. This is not going to happen. And then also, I mean, I got nominated for a screenplay. The film that won that year was, driving as daisy. So that could tell you more than enough about the climate. Then also people voted and who were the people who were members of the Academy, Motion Picture, Arts, and Sciences.

Did you ever feel that way, though, like you were entitled to awards that you did not get, that you earned awards that you did not get? And where do you sit on it? Because... Well, I think that, I mean, there's footage of me being not happy. The last time, It was with Black Clansman. Which wasn't that long ago. What was the name of that film? Green Book, Green Book. Oh, okay.

So I said, man, every time someone is driving somebody, I'm going to lose. Drive his Daisy and Green Book. And a funny thing, you know, I was very upset. And I jumped down on my men's footage of the Academy. That night, I jumped out of my seat, oh, sweet Carson, and my wife trying to have me. Sit down. I'm like, get off me.

And you sit. Then my mom, Tanya, my wife, sit, my son out there and get me. And so I calmed down. It's never been a secret about the filmmakers who have inspired you over the years. I remember a few years ago you had an exhibit at the Academy Museum and like all the folks were there. All of your heroes. Yeah, all of your giants. For you, though, a few years ago, she's got to have it.

It was remade. Not remade. Reimagined. That's the same going to happen with this film, people think. Highest Law is not a remake of High and Low. Right. It was reinterpretation. Yes.

That interpretation was an interpretation for the 20s, you know, the 2020s now. Your She's Got to Have It was so subversive because it was like, 1986. 1986 about sexual liberation, a young woman who has the freedom to choose. I just wonder, like, as you move through time, And you're experiencing your own work, other folks reimagining your story for a new time. Like, it's kind of like the beauty of storytelling. But let me tell you this, though. It was only when I got into NYU graded at film school three-year program

that I really got introduced to world's cinema. And the first course of Sawa film that I saw the wasn't a samurai film was Roshamor. It was a film about a murder and a rape and how these different characters each tell their version of the story. story. And that premise I used for she's going to have it. So this is not the first thing. I'm getting down with my brother, Curisov. I got to meet, too.

When did you meet him? It was when he was here in the States. And at that time, Scorsese and Spielberg and Francis Ford were promoting. They produced the film. I forgot the name of the film. And one of my prize possessions, it was in the show at the Brooklyn Museum is a beautiful portrait that he signed for me he did his autographs

with the paintbrush Oh he'd not ink so is white ink and gives me beautiful people you go to my Instagram Official Spike Lee you'll see this portrait that of him that Curacao assigned me with a paint brush

for white paint. What a moment and what a prize possession Yes. Did he know and understand the impact that he had on you through your films? Did you guys say to talk about that? Yeah, I told You told him about it. A lot of times when you meet these giants and, you know, at the while I'm going for an hour like Spike, all right, we get you.

I'm glad I influenced it. I'm glad I influenced your work, but I'm not, I don't have an hour right here for you to tell me that. Yeah, right, right. Spike Lee, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been a pleasure. Spike Lee's new film, highest to lowest, is now playing in theaters and streaming on Apple TV Plus. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our technical director and engineer is Orgy Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.