Fresh Air - Dir. Craig Brewer Is Chasing ‘Purple Rain’ Magic

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Director Craig Brewer has made a career of telling stories about dreamers and misfits chasing something bigger than themselves, from ‘Hustle & Flow’ to ‘Dolemite Is My Name.’ Now he's back with ‘Song Sung Blue,’ a film based on the true story of a Milwaukee couple who became local legends performing as a Neil Diamond tribute band. He spoke with Tonya Mosley. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, it's Terry Gross. Before we start the show today, I want to say a few words about public media. It's been in the news a lot because federal funding for it was completely eliminated earlier this year. But it's the fact that NPR is public media that enables fresh air and all of NPR's podcasts to be unique and to be there for you. Public media was created to represent and serve diverse audiences, including underrepresented communities throughout America, enabling us to better hear and understand each other, and in the words of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, to offer programs for, quote, instructional, educational, and cultural purposes, unquote. At NPR, we still believe in these core commitments,

but the loss of federal funding that the Act provided for is creating major challenges for NPR and all public radio stations. As we move into this uncharted future together, we know that you will not let the service that has been here for you all these years falter. We rely on your support to bring you fresh air now more than ever. This year, we've continued to bring you interviews with investigative journalists who have uncovered important stories that otherwise may have never been revealed about our government and the state of our democracy, as well as interviews with authors, musicians,

actors, directors, scientists, health experts, religion scholars, and more. Who knows what surprises await us in 2026? Thank you if you already go the extra mile as an NPR Plus supporter. If not, you can join the Plus community, get a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across NPR's podcasts, including fresh air, and support public media by signing up for NPR Plus today at plus.npr.org. Thank you. This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. My guest today is filmmaker Craig Brewer. He's built a career telling stories about people chasing dignity and purpose through music. He first broke out with hustle and flow that was back in 2005 about a Memphis pimp trying to make it as a rapper. And since then, his work has moved

across genres, from Black Snake Mone and Footloose to Dolomite is My Name and coming to America the sequel. His new film is called Song Song Blue, and it's based on the true story of Mike and Claire Sardina, a couple from Milwaukee who met in the late 80s and built a life around their Neil Diamond tribute act, Lightning and Thunder. They played bars, small venues, and over time became local celebrities. Eddie Vedder even invited them to open for Pearl Jam. In the film, they're played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. In this scene I'm about to play, we find them on their very first date, just getting to know each other. Jackman's character starts to open up about his sobriety, what he's learned along the way, and his long-held desire to perform.

I'm always going to be an alcoholic, but I've been sober 20 years. The other day, it was Well, they call it a sober birthday. Happy belated sober birthday. Here's a thing. With sobriety, you gotta face up to certain truths. Way to go. Lightning, 20 years. All right, I'm not a songwriter. I'm not a sex symbol, but I just want to entertain people.

And I want to make a living. I know me, too. I don't want to be a hairdresser. I want to sing. I want to dance. I want a house. I want a garden. I want a cat.

So here's what I'm thinking. I need a hook. I need something big. I need something new. And as you put it, Nostalgia pays. This year also marks 20 years since Hustle and Flow, the film that changed Craig Brewer's life. The late director John Singleton believed in the project so deeply that he put his own house up as collateral to finance it.

Hustle and Flow went on to win several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Original Song for It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp. Brewer still lives in Memphis, and he's described. song sung blue as a little bit of a brother to hustle and flow. Craig Brewer, welcome back to fresh air. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. And you know what? I was actually struck by the way you described song sung blue as kind of a sibling to hustle and flow. What connects those two films for you? Well, I think that I've just always been really fascinated by people who have really big dreams, almost dreams that when you hear them as someone just listening on or a friend or family member, you almost feel bad for them a little bit.

You feel as if like, oh, no, it's just, it's too big. And yet there's still something I think in every human that when they hear those kind of dreams coming from out of somebody, you could be bitter about it because it's probably tapping into something that's in your own soul, really, something that maybe you let go of. And particularly with artists, you're dealing with the elements of their life that are informing their art and informing their sound or their point of view. So, especially with like hustle and flow, I always felt that whenever I was talking to rappers that I knew here in Memphis, especially in the, you know, the early 2000s, late 90s, like there was a big movement of being dismissive of rap that. it wasn't truly like an art form. Especially southern rap.

Right. I'm glad you said that. It was, and I mean, now everything kind of sounds like southern rap. But around the time that I was trying to get hustle and flow going, it was definitely not something on the radar. And definitely plenty of people that would be very dismissive of rap as an art form. But I just, I couldn't help but see them to be completely incorrect. I mean, I was with friends of mine who had taken elements of their life or elements of their dreams. wish fulfillment and put it into the music in a way that I just felt was fascinating and

empowering. And so when I look at songs and blue, I kind of see the same thing. There's that dreamer element that you kind of look at their life and they're saying, yeah, I'm going to be playing on Broadway. I'm going to be playing in big casinos, you know, and you're just like, no, I don't think that's going to happen. And yet their journey in it, the family that they kind of create around it is something that is aspirational. And I also think that it, I also think that it, you know, to a great extent, it also happened with me just with the way I started my career in Memphis, Tennessee. Yeah. You know, this story song sung Blue and Mike and Claire's story, who were real people, it took hold of you some time ago. You saw a documentary about them

back in 2009. And I actually want to play a clip where Mike and Claire, played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, they've narrowed in on this idea of being a tribute band for Neil Diamond. And they're practicing in this clip in Claire's home. They're kind of really getting it started. And she shares a home with her mother. So you'll also hear her mother in this clip. Let's listen. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Tell you, Mom and Girl, we can't stay in law. We got things. We got to catch up. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-T-T-T-T-T-E-T-B. You know, you know what I'll say.

Excuse me. Much too late for anyone to be singing that loud. Ma, this is the man I was telling you about Mike Sardina. This is Lightning. How you doing tonight? Not good. Sing softer. That's where we get to hear Hugh Jackman's pipes.

I mean, I think we've kind of known if you follow him in theater that he can really sing. He can. He loves it. It takes everything to just pull him off that stage if he's in the mode of entertaining. He loves it. He really does. And then Kate is the big surprise to, I'm sure a lot of people who are seeing the movie, that she's just got an incredible voice. Right. And their voices together work in harmony so well. Is it true that you pre-recorded all of the music in Memphis before you started shooting? I did. I did. I had the same music collaborator and composer and producer and producing. producer. His name is Scott Beaumar, and he did all the score and recording for hustle and flow for all the blues music and Black Snake Mone. But yeah, we know all the old stacks musicians and people that, like, recorded with Willie Mitchell and Al, you know, Al Green. And there's just a real wealth of talent here in Memphis. I just kind of feel very comfortable working in the studios here. I would say that I probably learned the most about directing actors by watching really good producers and reading about Memphis producers working with talent. It's kind of just my groove, you know. Well, that's so interesting because you've said that in the studio is where you actually saw Jackman and Hudson figure out their character.

So it's not necessarily in the rehearsals on a, you know, on a set, but in the recording studio, singing together. And I was just curious, what did you see happening between them in those sessions? Yeah, it's interesting. You know,

I still believe that like really good music producing is trying to find the spark of the moment. Like there's just, you're not trying to get too technical

to tell somebody to hit a note here or there. You kind of want to just capture something really real and provide an environment where they can be that real.

And so we were keeping like, Hugh in one isolation booth and Kate in another isolation booth. And it just really wasn't working. So Scott and I, we put a couch out and we just put two microphones in front of the couch and we just sat them right next to each other on the couch. And it's so funny because it's so perfect because sometimes people have asked me like, hey, if I'm having like relationship trouble, what should I do?

And I go, I know this sounds odd, but go out to dinner, but just sit at the bar. I go, there's something about facing each other. that is this confrontational act to some extent. But if you're side by side, you know, you can kind of just two people kind of dealing with their own things, you know, but there's a closeness that happens that that is different than facing each other at dinner. And I think the same thing happened with Hugh and Kate. We didn't do any rehearsals.

We had one re-through. And then we sat them down and threw them right into the mix of having to figure out their harmonies and like when they're going to come in. And by the end of the day, and you got to remember, These are two actors that really didn't know each other and met on this day. Oh, they had never met in person or at all before this. We had done some phone calls and a Zoom call at one point, but no, no. How did you know that they'd have chemistry?

Was that a fear at all? Oh, it's a fear. It doesn't matter how charismatic your actors are. There's still that alchemy that happens of like two people coming together and how are they going to respond to each other. But my fears went away at the end of that day recording. Because they started really just, they felt married suddenly. I mean, it was kind of like, you know, she'd be like, no, you didn't really get that note. You could do, we could do that one more time.

Craig, one more. You know, and it's just like suddenly she was being protective of you and vice versa. And then suddenly they're connected. And then the next day we did a camera test. And they were dressed up in their outfits. And we threw on the song. that you just heard like Cherry Cherry

and they started singing along to it and I turned around and I could just see the whole crew just stop what they were doing and this grin on all their face and just watching them on the monitors and they're like oh there they are it's like there's the couple I didn't know

I needed to see and to me it just kind of it was kind of cool because you have Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson who both kind of popped in the 90s you know more than 20 years ago and now we're seeing them and they're older

and yet they still have the spark and it just felt real it felt grounded and lovely the crew's response it makes me think about something else I've heard you say that men on your crew were actually getting emotional

watching Hugh telling you he reminded them of their fathers or themselves when he was performing like the anthems of the things that they couldn't say What were you seeing in those moments? Yeah, I mean, it was definitely in the music, but definitely in more of the moments where he had to be a dad.

And I found it so fascinating because I would actually go around to some of my crew members. I mean, these are like tough grips and electricians and everything, but they would get emotional watching them. And I was like, what's going on here? Like, what's happening? And we started having conversations about, like, well, what are the movies that men cry?

And I'm being general here. I cry every movie I see. But why is it that field of dreams just unashamedly makes men cry? You know, it's like, okay, you're dealing with father themes. You're dealing with themes of, am I able to like honor my family? Like, am I able to take care of my family? And do they, does anybody know perhaps even though I'm kind of quiet that I am suffering with it? And I think that there's been a lot of, probably justifiably and understandably, there's, there's, there has been a lot of criticism for, towards masculinity.

And I think that, that the interesting thing that I've heard in some of the test audiences is some women saying it's nice to see positive masculinity, you know, an era of men that like, if something's not exactly, uh, the way everybody would want it, they're still making it work. They're just patching themselves up and in silence moving forward. And it was a nice way to see that or celebrate that in a character. And there is something happening there. I'm going to spoil one thing from the film to tell everyone that you make us wait for sweet Caroline. How did you think about withholding the thing that everyone expects? I know. It sounds like such a horrible thing that I've done. But I get it. What was happening to me is that I was getting ready to work on the movie. And so people go, what are you making right now? And I'd be like, well, I want to make this movie about this Neil Diamond tribute band. And they would say, oh, are you going to do Sweet Caroline? I said, yes, we're going to do Sweet Caroline. Every single person I talked to. That was the first thing out of their mouth. Are they going to sing Sweet Caroline? I was like, yes, yes. We're also going to do Forever in Blue Jeans. And I'm a believer. and play me and Cherry Cherry.

I started bringing up all the, you know, he's got other songs. You know, I'm even, I'm even mad that I'm not going to be able to do all the songs I want to do. I don't think I have enough room. So I put that element in the movie, knowing full well that everyone, even people who don't know Neil Diamond are like, I know one Neil Diamond song, and it's because I've been drunk at a bar and someone started singing Sweet Caroline, and I knew you come in on bomb, bomb, bomb, and so good, so good, so good.

And so it was this thing that I always knew, like, man, when, When that song hits, you better really land it. Like, it's got to be good. But you have to, like, lay some seed for it. You need to, like, tease your audience. And so I don't keep it from it for a long time. I mean, it's probably, what, maybe, like, 30 minutes into the movie, maybe right around there that I, a little bit before then. It's a great moment when it happens.

But there's so many other amazing music moments. Claire, she's still alive. She's still performing. actually under the name Thunder After Lightning, because Mike died in 2006. Yes. And, you know, I think as I was watching the film, I was thinking about also knowing what would happen, that he spent his entire adult life devoted to Neil Diamond's music, but he never got to meet him. And there's something almost unbearable about that.

How did you sit with that when you first learned it? Well, it's tricky because there's a part of me that goes, oh, that's so sad. And then there's another part of me that goes, oh, it's so perfect. It really is. You know, I really love my father. He was in shipping, but he loved movies and going to plays. And we, that was probably the way that we threw the ball around in our own way, was going to see movies together. And when I wrote my first movie, I sent it off to my dad, and he read it, and he gave me, like, such a great final, like, final thing to say to me,

where he was like, don't be afraid, like, film this movie with no money and like a digital video camera and don't apologize for it. And it was the last thing he said to me because later on he died of a sudden heart attack. And he was a healthy guy, you know. And my mother gave me like 20 grand of inheritance that I got from his passing and I made my first film with it. And I sometimes think about how my father's never met my children. My father has never seen any of my films, but he's completely responsible for it all. He's his driving force and the final things that he said to me and just everything kind of like filled me with this desire to do the best.

And so I just remember when I saw the documentary and I was like, this guy poured everything he could into the love of Neil Diamond and claimed that the music of Neil Diamond saved him and kept him sober and helped him deal with the, you know, the visions of Vietnam that he had experienced as a tunnel rat, and yet did not get to meet him. You know, even when Neil Diamond was coming into town, he passed before that could happen. I mean, later, of course, Claire got to meet him. There's a wonderful picture of the two of them in the documentary where Neil Diamond's holding on to Claire Sardina, and, you know, he always had a standing ticket at all the shows for her.

And so it's bittersweet because it's the thing that's sad, but I remember seeing it, and this weird part of me inside was going like, that's kind of perfect for story. You know, it's a, people are going to, they're going to be mad that he never got to me. Craig, you mentioned your father who loomed large in your life. Every time I hear you talk about him, I, I just have so many questions I want to ask you about your relationship. You mentioned that he read your first film, which is the poor and the hungry. and he told you, he gave you some advice on how to move forward with that because it was a really kind of a tough time for you. You had been working to try to fulfill this dream of being a filmmaker. You had already made that decision, but you were kind of striking out. You were in debt. You were just trying to figure out how you're going to do this thing. And he told you to keep it simple. What is state with you most about that conversation that you had with him? Because he died soon after, like, very soon after, almost like the next day or later that day.

Yeah, later that day. Yeah, it's, you know, I think I've been thinking about it a little bit more now because I'm now exactly five years older than my father ever was. And it is a strange thing, I'm sure, for anybody out there that's had that happen when you kind of lap your parent, especially when they died unexpectedly. early because you've looked at all these pictures and everything and you think, oh, yeah, he was just so much older than I was so much more of a grown-up. But now I'm looking at pictures and I'm doing the math and I'm going, wait a minute, I think

he was 43 in this picture, you know, and then I think back on my own 43-year-old, like, oh, wow, was he kind of dealing with that? So I think what I think of it more is just as now I'm a parent with a 24-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter and am I saying the right things to them? You know, am I trying to give them some encouragement? It's such a tough time when you're a young adult and you want to be something so badly. You want to be anything. Maybe you're even searching for it. And there's so many moments where you can feel like a failure. And I think he just, you know, as I tell people like, oh, as a dad, he stuck the landing. I mean, like the last thing he told me was, you know,

just look at what you have and try not to apologize for it and try to do move move the dream to your reality and don't try to do it the other way and i think that's ultimately what helped me find perhaps my voice a little bit more was to think about like well what are the real basic uh rudiments of this story and am i maybe do i have the danger of getting in the way of it by just trying to make it larger than it should be when it should probably be simple or even more effective that way. And so I think that maybe it was just because he was very much

into kind of like corporate planning that he just, it's like, well, what do we have and what can we do and what do we want and what's the ultimate goal? And I think I just couldn't see the forest for the trees a little bit. My guest today is filmmaker Craig Brewer. We'll be right back after a short break.

I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and I'm continuing our conversation with filmmaker Craig Brewer. He came out of Memphis in 2005 with Hustle and Flow, a character-driven film that reshaped his career and established many of the themes that continue to define his work, ambition, reinvention, and the complicated role music plays in people's lives. Hustle and Flow won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for It's Hard Out Here for Pimp. And since then, Brewer has moved between independent films and studio projects, often returning to stories about performers and outsiders,

including Black Snake Mone, Dolomite is My Name, and now his new film, Song Sung Blue. The poor and the hungry, you took that $20,000 inheritance that your dad left for you and you made this film. It's a love story between a car thief and a cellist whose car he stole. But really, it's about people living on the margins and trying to find something honorable or clean in the middle of the hustle. And I want to play the open to the movie, which was shot in black and white, and it sets up the premise of the film. Let's listen. Most of the time, the parts are worth more than the whole thing.

You take some rundown hooped he can't even turn over. You'd be lucky to pull in scrap chains at the junkyard. But if you break her down into different parts, you can sell everything's working for a good profit. Rotors, radiators, cylinders, steering columns, people pay good money for a trunk top or a back bumper. Say you take people, they just like cars. If you look at a person hole, take them all in at once, their looks, their nature, how much money they got in their pockets. You may say, hey, he ain't worth much. but people got parts you just got to get inside

that is the poor and the hungry there is a rawness and a richness to it and I want to make a point to say this is the year 2000 and what ways did your dad's voice direct you through the making well I think that because the things thing that had really depressed me is that I tried to make a film before this, that I tried to shoot on film, and I didn't quite know what I was doing, but I was hearing from everybody that this is what was going to get me into Sundance, or get me into the industries that it had to be shot on film. And he's, he really, on that phone call, he was like, it sounds to me like you're trying to get in and you're not trying to get good. And, uh, yeah, kind of, kind of,

kind of stings, doesn't it? Right. You know, and it's like, it's so true. And I have to say, like, even today, when I'm talking to young filmmakers, you want to be careful because sometimes they'll come up to me and they're like, look, I got this whole idea for a franchise. It's this, it's kind of this superhero movie and blah, blah, blah, and they start going into it.

And I want them to stay inspired and to keep talking. But there's another part of me that wants to just say, like, here's what my dad would probably say is that you're you're you don't have the tools to produce this so you need to maybe redirect some of your thoughts and your your um passion to wanting to make something towards your own life and trust that your own life might actually be more interesting than explosions on another planet and and i think that that's really the big lesson with it all you know just to try to just to the best of my ability he we produced plays of mine right after I graduated high school. And, you know, I did a lot in high school as well. But after

high school, the two of us formed a company that was just called, I mean, we didn't form a company. It was like we had an account. And the account was for two brewers. And so the account abbreviation was BR2, which later when my father passed away, that was the name of my company. And it's now still a family company. My daughter made a short film just recently. And she actually, it was a big teary moment when she said, I'd like to. restart BR2 again. So that was the account number that my dad and I had when we would produce these small plays that I wrote and I directed. And, you know, he would be counting the people in the audience to see if we had a break even for that night. And I would be thinking about the play.

But, you know, he still was a big believer in trying to keep cost down and doing things that didn't have like sets. It could be done on a black box stage. And that kind of translated into film for me. And oddly enough, like, I still think about it. I still think, is there a better, more emotional way to do this scene instead of, like, what I initially wrote, like, oh, it's going to be on this big bridge. It'll be at night in the rain. And it's like, now I'm thinking of all the problems that are going to happen with it, as opposed to maybe there's a, there's something, there's something that's more attainable and more meaningful. And that's really what I got from dad. That's so interesting what you got from your father and what you share with these young

filmmakers because I'm also thinking about hustle and flow which you I think I've heard you say that it's sort of a reflection of you and your wife making the poor and the hungry that scrappiness and that resourcefulness kind of the same journey as the characters in hustle info DJ and Shug oh yeah oh yeah I mean yeah I mean without like you know apples to apples comparison like Yeah, you're not a pimp trying to be a music. But I really, you know, when I was making that first film, my wife was pregnant with our first child, we were living in a small house in Memphis. I couldn't edit the movie and have air conditioning through our window unit at the same

time, so I'd have to get like my room really, really cool and cold in August, and then I'd turn it off and then I could turn on my computer because the, you know, the circuit breaker would blow. you know that scrappiness you see in hustle and flow is really about us making my first film and and the struggles to try to make it and and and also that to be a director sometimes is to be a manipulator and you're you're kind of trying to get everybody around you to share your vision and try to in a weird way sometimes you you angle it where it's you think it's best for them. But they're ultimately there to help you. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking with filmmaker Craig Brewer,

director of Song, Song, Blue, about the through line and his work and why music keeps pulling him back as a storytelling engine. We'll be back after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today I'm talking with Craig Brewer. He came out of Memphis in 2005 with hustle and flow, a character-driven film that reshaped his career and established many of the themes that continue to define his work, ambition, reinvention, and the complicated role music plays in people's lives. Hustle and Flow, it went on to win several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Its Heart Out Here for a Pimp by 3-6 Mafia. And I have a question about the making of that song. But first, we got to hear a little bit of it to remind the audience, so let's

just play a little bit. You know, it's hard out here for a pill when he's trying to get this money for the real. For the catalytic gas money spent. that we'll have a whole lot of jump of shit You know it's hard out here for a pill When he's trying to get this money for the rent For the catalypt and gas money spent

We'll have a whole lot of Jumped shit In my eyes I don't see some crazy things In this street Got a couple Working on the change just for me But I gotta keep my game tight like holy on game I like taking from a

No, no better I know that ain't right up seen That was it's hard out here for by 3-6 Mafia, the first rap group to win an Oscar. And, Craig, I heard that the song was written, negotiated, and put to bed in about five hours. Is that right? And then you guys went to the club or something like that. Yeah.

So, John Singleton, I learned a lot about the hustle with John. I really did, because he was making it with his own money, but he was a real fan of Southern rap like way before everybody else was um so when we were we uh john was going to be flying into memphis and terence terence howard and tarragie henson were over at three six mafia studio uh recording a song john was coming in because he wanted another song he wanted what he called we were all saying we need a pimp song and i was supposed to take him over to the studio but i pulled him into this other studio where my friend Al Capone was doing a song, Whoop That Trick. And so John bought Whoop That Trick that's featured in the movie and now has kind of like become an anthem

at sports arenas around the country. But he then was very empowered to go in and negotiate with Juicy J of Three Six Mafia, who wanted more money, or probably the fair amount of money. So we go to the studio And Juicy Jay goes So I hear you're messing with another rapper You're gonna hire Al Capone to maybe do that Pimp song And John's like, hey man, you know it's business And Jucy said

Okay, that's too bad because I got this And he hit the space bar on his laptop And the beat of Heart Out Here for a Pimp began to play And it was amazing And then Juicy pulls out like a napkin Like it was like from a Neely's barbecue local barbecue joint, where he had scribbled out the lyrics of, you know, it's hard out here for a pimp. Like, he had written it out on this napkin and said, this is what Taraji would say.

And I'm seeing John just kind of like go crazy, like he's loving it. And then Juicy's like, but you've got to get down in the pocket. Got to get down to the sock, John. You know, you got to get me a little bit more bread on this. So John pushes me into this other room with a Frazier boy and he said, you know, you tell him what the movie's about while he writes the lyrics. And I'm going to negotiate with Juicy. And so I'm in there while Frazier Boy is, you know, rolling a blunt and writing an Academy Award winning song. And I went outside, and I noticed that John and Juicy were on either side of the room.

But they had their lawyers on their sidekicks. They're like blueberries. The sidekick phone, yeah. Remember those? They kind of swit. They flung out like a little switchblade. And John was like, you know, you'd hear about. you'd hear like a boom and then juicy would look at his phone and he'd be like oh you want you want

50% of my ringtone money huh is that what you want and then john would get a bing and and they would negotiate that way as they were discussing which which um shake joint they wanted to go to that night and so they they negotiated it and then we went into the strip club that's what you mean that's it yes yes and so terence is in the next room and we hand them fresh lyrics taraji's there she records the hook it all happened like right then it was so memphis it was just such a a very quick but inspired combination that came together that happened to create an Academy Award winning song. Take me back to that night. Oscar night. I mean, you knew you had been nominated, that 3-6 mafia had been nominated, and that in itself is a big deal for this rap group to be nominated for an

Oscar. But did you even expect that there was a chance that it would win? I have to be really honest with you. As soon as I knew we were not. nominated, I thought we had won it. I was pretty confident because every other song that was nominated was more of like a background song. There were great songs, but they weren't integral to like the plot. They weren't something that people were like working towards and striving towards. So I was pretty confident we won it and then we won it. And then I got the call that I've, that has never been equaled, which was my agent, Charles King, who now runs a big company called Macro, Charles said, you've been invited to Prince's house. Do you want to go?

I was like, yes, sir, and went there and Ludacris was there. And, and Ludacris was just saying, like, man, nobody knows how big of a deal this is. That not only did we just win, that did a rap group win an Academy Award, but that a Southern rap group that we've all known about for like 10 years and has been only kind of like on the local Southern circuit just blew up on a global stage. It was a big night for us. It really was. Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, we're talking with filmmaker Craig Brewer, director of Song Song, Song Blue, about the through line and his work and why music keeps pulling him back as a storytelling engine. We'll be back after a short break.

This is fresh air. This is fresh air. And today I'm talking with Craig Brewer, director of the new movie Song Song Blue, featuring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. Okay, I want to shift gears for a little bit because I want to talk a little bit more about your childhood.

You're synonymous with Memphis, but you spent a significant part of your childhood in Vallejo, California, which is a Navy town. It's a working class. town it's racially mixed who were your friends who were you around craig that's one thing that i when i look back i'm so grateful for that i really had like a real diverse childhood um you know people that were working on submarines that with their dads you know um uh i'll say it like

nerds you know i was one of them you know just i was always like a chubby kid and But then I discovered like Michael Jackson and I, me and my buddies, we like saved up on layaway at the store called Mary Go Round for the Michael Jackson zipper jacket that he wore and beat it. I wore it to church, mortified my mother. You know, it was a time when like, you know, Saturday Night Live was like really big in my life. Eddie Murphy was on it. You know, Prince was something that just blew me away with like purple rain. And so all my friends were just the strangest collection of people. But it was very much a community.

You know, my mother was involved in, she was on the school board. I was in children's theater. And children's theater just rescued me. I mean, I come from a sports family. My grandfather was on the first New York Mets team and he played for the Yankees. And then later he was a celebrity. He was in these light beer. commercials for where he would he was at the end of he was there was a gang called the light beer

gang and they argued whether light beer tastes great or was less filling and uh and he was at the end of every commercial just there was his name was marvelous Marvin Throneberry and he was just look at the camera and go I still don't know why they asked me to do this commercial so there was a sports expectation I think um to some extent in my family but I just wasn't interested or good at it and so by going to the Vallejo Children's Theater and put on production after production, I just had the fear beat out of me. And to also just be in that world where, you know, I was discovering music. And I have to say, like, you know, especially in the 80s, there was kind of this call to blackness. Like, black artistry was the culture.

Tina Turner was on the radio with new artists. You know, Tina's been around. You know what I mean? And now here she is, like, chart-topping with Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson and, and, you know, you would, and then I always have a hard time explaining to young people just what Eddie Murphy was. Like, you're never going to understand how supernova that presence was globally. Just we all fell in love with Eddie. And then the fat boys came out. oh the fat boys oh let me take wait were you bboxing oh i not successfully not not not not not effectively but but yes yes i mean and and the thing about like i mean to be in a car with my friends being picked up for school and having like slick rick and dougie fresh come on and just saying like mom

you got to turn this up and to hear the show you know to hear what dougie Fresh was doing it. It was just, it was so outrageous. It was just so new. And, and yet somewhat taboo. I knew people that went to church with me, or kids that went to church with me, that would have to come over to my house so they could listen to the fat boys. They would come over to my house so they could listen to Prince because they, you know, their parents wouldn't let them. There's something that comedian Kevin Hart, he's called you a real one, which in black culture is just another way of saying you're invited to the cookout, you know. And, I mean, I was just thinking about how, like, audiences in general, you know, we're incredibly, we're incredibly sensitive to what feels true and what feels false, especially in the small choices.

And so I've always wondered with you where your understanding, not just of black stories comes from, but your understanding of black interior life. And it sounds like your childhood was an element of giving you that foundation. It was. It was. But I really have to give credit where credit is due. And that's just, that's really just Memphis. I think that Memphis is truly a unique, magical place in American culture, both thematically, historically, geographically. To live in Memphis and to love Memphis is to recognize that you are a part of black culture. It is not part of you. You are in service and you benefit from black culture. Our greatest white artists and even our greatest white politicians benefited from black culture.

Some of our greatest mayors are benefiting from Robert Church, who was the first ever black millionaire, who built downtown. He was, you know, the son of a black woman and a white steamboat operator, you know, during the, you know, the civil war, you know, and built Memphis from the ground up. I definitely am not here to say that I, you know, am speaking from experience or anything. I just try to keep an ear open to it and then kind of like a coach just be in service of it. So just finding really great artists, trying to find great stories, trying to be as truthful as I can, and then arming everybody with what they need to be who they are and being grateful for it. But I do find it interesting that, you know, Song Sun Blue, I've had many people say like, oh, it looks like you're doing something really different. And I always kind of go, well, what, though?

I don't think I am doing anything different. And I think they're awkward and basically saying, yeah, but they're white. Right. By the way, I never get this really from black people. It's usually white people going like, what are you doing? And I go, I think I'm still doing the same thing, but I think you're seeing something else. And so I get it. I understand it.

But I look at our music culture. I look at like what Stax was, what Bookerty and the MGs were. And there is just something unique here. And that's where I get a lot of my inspiration. And here is where I get invited to the cookout, you know. Yeah, yes, yes. Last question for you, Craig. Do you have a story from that prince after party at the Oscars?

You've talked to somebody. First of all, I show up to Prince's house, and there's a purple rug that goes all the way up to his front door from where the van would drop you off. So I go up to the house, I come in through the front door, and there's nobody there. I thought there was going to be a party, right? But Ludacris was there. And he too was going like, hey, man, I thought there was going to be a party here. And it's like, yeah, I did too. suddenly an elevator opens and Chris Rock is there and he goes, what's y'all doing down here?

And we're like, wait, well, we just showed up. We don't know where we're going. He's like, no, no, no, come with me. And so we all get in this elevator and we go up to the roof of Friends's house and the doors open. And I've never seen, it was like, it was like the Wizard of Oz, just what, but everybody who was somebody in this world and was black was at this party. I mean, everybody. And there was like a, like it was about three feet high, but it was this, this, this, like, moat, this, this river of chocolate that was going by you. And it was just surrounded by fruit and, and, and marshmallows and these skewers that you could just like, I mean, it just, it went on for like, like, like, at least 10 or 30 feet.

And you could just dip all this food into the chocolate. So then there's a tent that's on the root. I, I can't explain this enough. on the roof of this house. And we go into one tent and there's food and beverages in there. We go into another tent and Sheila E. is setting up to play entertainment for the night. And there's nowhere to sit. And then I hear, yo Memphis. And I look over to the left and there's Morgan Freeman and he's got his own booth. And he's like, to the person he's like, scoot over. scoot over me and my wife sat down and and because he's from Memphis you know he he lives

down in Mississippi but he we've met a few times and he knows I'm from Memphis and he we have that connection and so yeah I sat there with with with Morgan Freeman and watched Sheila E and met Prince on the night that my life Craig on the on the night that my movie won three six mafia an Academy Award for a song called it's hard out here for a pimp it was a surreal night What a night. What a night. This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time, and thank you for your work.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Craig Brewer's new film, Song Sung Blue, opens in theaters on Christmas Day. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, actor Will Arnett. He stars in the new film, Is This Thing On? About a man going through a divorce who finds himself on stage doing stand-up. Arnette co-wrote the movie.

movie, which is directed by Bradley Cooper. We talk about the film, his extensive voiceover career, and his popular Smartlist podcast. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanishefsky. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interview and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorak, Anne-Marie Baldinado,

Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challoner, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper. Susan Yacundi directed today's show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.