WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1255 - Barry Jenkins

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Barry Jenkins is grateful that he's been able to harness the tools of filmmaking in order to tell the stories of his ancestors. Barry and Marc get into all the details of making the ten-part series The Underground Railroad and how Barry differentiates between the projects he's made with his head and the ones he's made with his gut. The also talk about Moonlight, bringing James Baldwin's words to the screen, and why it was important to have an on-set counselor for this recent undertaking. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis and ACAS Creative. What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, nuts? What's happening? How are we? How are we doing?

How are you? They, he, she, it, thou. How is thou? What's happening? Today on the show, I talked to Barry Jenkins. He's the director of Moonlight. He directed If Beale Street Could Talk, and he directed Medicine for Melancholy. If Beale Street Could Talk, and he directed Medicine for Melancholy. And his latest project is the limited series for Amazon Prime Video, The Underground Railroad, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Colson Whitehead. Heavy stuff, man. And it's one of these pieces of art, a true cinematic achievement a monumental piece of cinematic art 10 episodes that could read as one long film and it blew my fucking mind and i know that most of you aren't going to watch it because it is difficult it is as horrific as it is

beautiful and those are the two sort of currents that run through it there's one level of just pure horror but you know in your heart that it's real that that the horror, although not depicting a particular historic truth in terms of an event, these are historic truths in terms of actions. And alongside of that ongoing horror is the ongoing beauty of humanity, community, struggle, tenderness, love in the shadow of ongoing horror and that horror goes on today it was one of these recent cathartic experiences that i had starting with pig the nicholas cage movie and on through all the uh sterling harjo films and then really sort of leaning into uh barry jenkins work you know obviously moonlight's amazing but uh this thing

underground railroad spectacular and i was i was honored to talk to the guy and i you know and i hope i did it justice because i wanted to engage i had questions i was excited that being said uh i was i just got back i was was in Salt Lake City for three days. I got in there Thursday. I spent most of Thursday. I landed Thursday morning. I spent most of Thursday walking from the gate to the parking lot. That fucking airport is like a strange joke.

Not a bad airport, just kind of like, wow, how long is this hallway where do we get out this isn't even that big a city but as i've said before and as i've i told the people in salt lake i i will book salt lake i'll go to wise guys great club good guy runs the place keith stubbs one of the indie club owners these guys who run their own shops you know it could go either way historically uh they could either be horrendous douchebags or monsters or they could be great guys who who run a good shop and he's one of those guys and oddly as you get more successful they all become better people but uh i get i don't get nervous but i book salt lake thinking that it's not a market for me that like you know that i'm not going to do a theater in

salt lake so i'm going to work this shit out i'll do five shows like a real road act and uh and and lean in and figure some more shit out but i I sell tickets in Salt Lake, and I fucking love Salt Lake. It's a weird-ass place. And it's, you know, I know it's the Mormon frequency. I know it's the intensity of the Wild West American Jesus cult that was sort of kind of built their world out there in the 1800s. And there's some sort of, no one, I mean, even after you learn about Mormons and where they come from and who they are, you're still like, I don't know, man, it's still weird. But every time I go there, it doesn't feel

like an evil weird. It seems like the weirdness overwhelms. There's not an evil thing. It's just a weird thing. It is a theocratic city. It is built out of the loins, I guess, of the elders of Zion. But they're always nice people. You never feel proselytizing. I don't feel any hate when I'm there. I always have a nice time there. And they're always very nice people. I don't feel any hate when I'm there. I always have a nice time there. And they're always very nice people. I don't, you know, and I, I wish I could say something different, but I can't. It's a bizarre place. And even before COVID, it's not, you know, there wasn't a lot of people around. It's a, it always seems a little empty. No one ever says that Salt Lake City is a bustling metropolis, but, But I'll tell you, man, great audiences.

Great audiences. But I didn't get to go see Space Jesus this time, which upset me. I always go visit the Temple Square when I'm there. I feel like I have to. It's not even a tourist thing. I find some peace among the Mormons. Yeah, so I didn't get to go to Temple Square and see Space Jesus, the giant statue of Jesus in front of the space landscape, which I enjoy doing. I like walking around Temple Square.

I like seeing the tabernacle and the original church there. They've built scaffolding around the temple in Temple Square in Salt Lake City city but i believe it's a launching pad i think that yeah i don't know how one gets into the ship uh or which ones are going up if it's only the um you know the underwear crew i don't know but it looks like a launching pad and uh well that would be interesting wouldn't it if if the mormons launched their temple into space and everybody in the world was like they're the ones they're the ones that are making the move. They're making the move to the new Zion, a Mormon planet, folks, a Mormon planet. They're getting out. Space Jesus is going to be installed on the top of the temple and it's going to shoot off like a ship if they can get through

the smoke haze from half of my state burning because come on you guys you know if you believe in god you'll believe anything and i don't mean that as insulting i'm just meaning that if you believe in god and you've opened that door you better be pretty fucking vigilant about what goes in and out. Seriously, you got to be extra vigilant. If you already believe the big bullshit, you got to watch out because a lot of little bullshit is going to sneak in there. And next thing you know, your soul is going to be filled with all kinds of bullshit beliefs and you're not going to know what's real.

So I'm saying like, keep your God, just watch that door. Watch that fucking door. like keep your god just watch that door watch that fucking door barry jenkins is uh a true artist and an inspired artist and i really need to to set this up properly because i i imagine a lot of you haven't watched underground railroad or maybe you haven't made it through the first two episodes you might not make it through at all but I do want to make it clear here. We talk about Underground Railroad a lot, and there's no regard for spoilers in this conversation. And to be honest with you, it doesn't matter that the series is more of a kind of poem, a visual poem, both elevating and horrific. a visual poem, both elevating and horrific. And the journey of the narrative is it's important, but you're not watching it to see what happens. You're watching it to sort of be taken somewhere and and be sort of informed, educated, elevated and horrified at the foundation of institutional racism being American slavery. So I wouldn't get too hung up

on it. This is an important piece of art and I'm talking to the artist. So I want to be able to dive into his intentions and talk about his vision. And I saw the the whole show so i'm going to engage with this and i believe if you listen to this conversation it will enrich your experience when you do see it if you choose to watch it and it's just i just want to make it clear it's not a matter of it being spoiled it's about having a deeper understanding of why he did what he did and executed it the way he did. And it's not going to ruin it for you. But I do suggest you watch it. Underground Railroad is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

And this is me talking to the director and writer of this 10-episode piece of art, Barry Jenkins. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel

by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.. PM start time on Saturday, March 9th at first Ontario center in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance. We'll get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of backly construction. Punch your ticket to kids night on Saturday, March 9th at 5. PM in rock city at Torontoontorock.com do you ever eat that place bevel have you ever eaten down there yeah yeah it's so fucking good i'm sorry i just ate it i just had leftovers. And I was like, it's one of those places. Like, I don't know always how to sort of appreciate things in life.

And I had to force myself today to realize, like, that was one of the best fucking meals I ever had. It's a nice one that happens, man. It's a nice one that happens. That's a good spot. Are you able to do it in general? Or are you just, like, work-minded? I'm just, like, work-minded. But sometimes it hits me.

I remember one time I used to live in the Bay Area. I went to this fancy restaurant just for lunch. Which one? It was like one of the pizza joints, not Pisaola. It was like the sister restaurant. The Boot and Shoe. Oh, okay. I went to the Boot and Shoe and just had a salad.

Yeah. A fucking salad, Mark. Yeah, yeah. It was the best salad I've ever had in my life. And you remember it? I remember it. It was so damn good. And it snuck up on me.

It's nice when that happens. So, like, I don't know, like, the whole story, but where did you grow up? I grew up in Miami, Florida. Born and raised. Wow, man. I don't know what to do with Florida. Do you? I don't, and I'm from there.

And in a certain way, I'm very proud to be from there. I wouldn't be talking to you if it wasn't for Florida State University where I went to film school and all the programs the state put into place so kids like me who grew up poor could actually go to college. And yet, hot damn. Wow. What a mess. It's sinking.

It's full of weirdos. My mother's down there, and I've grown to appreciate it because of the, you know, I guess diversity is a nice word for whatever the hell's happening there but there's like uh so many people so many freaks and so much tension so much tension and and there's certain areas of florida that kind of are like the frontier yeah people just go to get space and do whatever the fuck they want right and more power to them it's great to have a place where people can do that but this thing it's like come on yeah it's getting crazy especially with the senior population that's down there that's crazy i know i can't i can't look at that guy anymore that dissentist i can't look at him yeah but that aside so but do you find that florida has defined outside of college

your childhood has defined your vision somehow uh not my vision i i will say i think it's defined the way i see light yeah um there was this cinematographer who passed away while i was in film school and me being a film nerd at the time this guy named conrad hall uh great cinematographer he shot a lot of films everybody's seen including i think he won the oscar for american beauty cinematography and uh i remember reading this article of him an american cinematographer he's this white guy but he was from fiji and he always said the way he saw light was driven by how he saw light as a child which was very bright this very bright sort of like really uh bursting sort of sunlight and growing up in florida especially in miami it's the same thing i mean

it's kind of like the most southernmost point you can be in the u.s yeah and so it's a very particular way of seeing light and i do think that affects the way I light my films. Well, I mean, I find that in watching all the films, I got to be honest with you, man. I mean, because I had some sort of event happen over the last couple of weeks. I watched all of Underground Railroad from the beginning. Thank you. And I'm just a white dude, a middle-aged white dude you know trying to understand and do the right thing but i don't know that you know from the you know within 10 minutes

of that uh film which it seems like it's all one big movie in a way is it uh no i think it's a tv show but uh but i don't i don't correct people when they call it a film. I think I see it as a compliment in a certain way. Well, it just seems like the process of it, all of it. I mean, obviously they operate each episode separately, but it all is moving towards something. It is. It's all of a piece. Right. And it does not feel like a TV series where you're going like, I wonder what's going to happen next.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? all right so but nothing somehow the for the struggle of slavery like i understand it i feel bad but it created something tangible in me where i was like oh my god you know all the way through that the undercurrent of how you're depicting the violence, the brutality, and just the abuse on every level really sort of somehow or another made it real, fresh, human, and horrendous. I don't know if that's a compliment, but I do want to say thank you. I have heard that some people can't get through the first hour of the show. I have heard that some people can't get through the first hour of the show. And that's interesting to me because I think back on my ancestors and I go, well, I wonder what it must have been like for them to get through the first hour of their lives.

Yeah. This was the beginning, middle and end of their lives were lived underneath this tyranny, this experience. So if you can't watch more than an hour of the show, put some respect on my ancestors names, as the kids say. Can't watch more than an hour of the show. Put some respect on my ancestors' names, as the kids say. But I think what you were talking about was kind of like the point for the group of us who made the show, which was it wasn't about presenting the spectacle of the condition of American slavery, which is something that I think has been done very well. Right. And for very pointed reasons and other works on the subject in the past. I think we wanted to present an experience that was in some way, because nothing can approximate

what it must have been like to have been my ancestors, but still to bear witness to what it must have been like to have been my ancestors and to do so in a way that you could understand the struggle they endured, the things they withstood, and I like to say, the things they did. The things they did, the creations they made,

and the families they protected and fostered so that I could sit here and have this conversation with you, bruh. Yeah. With you. Well, that was the balance, right? So, because, I mean, I knew, I didn't read the book. And so, you know, it appeared to me fairly quickly to sort of unfold as an allegory of some kind. And, you know, I could understand that all the way through,

that there were launching points from historical fact, and those were fictionalized to affect some of them. And then the idea of the railroad being a real railroad, sort of like this morning I'm hiking, and I realize it is sort of a purgatory, and then you only get out and you're in hell again. Yeah, and it's interesting that you mentioned you threw the word fact out. And this idea of fact and fiction is something that I've been talking about a lot, especially with the author, Colson Whitehead, who's a really, really smart cat.

Harvard educated, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. You know, he's a very smart individual. But he talks about the difference between fact, fiction, and truth. And some of these facts that we've been given, we've been given by the people in power. I think there was an article that came out about two months ago about this textbook that was still being used in, I want to say, Louisiana or Mississippi, somewhere in the region, where the textbook was telling kids, high school students, where the textbook was telling kids, high school students, that the American slave trade was a system of conscripted labor.

Really? It was being framed in this way. And I thought about that and I realized, oh, if I had only read the novels, the fiction of Toni Morrison as a high school student, I would have gotten closer to the truth of that experience than reading this fact-based textbook. And so I think this idea of fact in fiction, that's one thing, but I think we should really be talking about truth to a certain degree. And I think that what Coulson does by, as you said, taking these events that did happen,

but sort of having them happen out of sequence and tied to this huge allegory of this train running underground, he's allowing us to get at a certain level of truth that wouldn't be possible otherwise. ground he's allowing us to get at a certain level of truth that wouldn't be possible otherwise so and when you approach that cinematically i mean you had to make you know uh decisions for the entire 10 episodes that we're going to carry all the way through like and you're so aware some decisions but man uh the beauty and you know i'm going to double back on myself refer to it as a film i think the process of making it maybe it did feel like a film to a certain degree uh because in the process of making it, maybe it did feel like a film to a certain degree because in the process

of making it, so many of these choices, they kind of happened organically where I would be working on set with the actors and the crew. Certain things would happen. Yeah. And I realized,

oh, that's not in the book and it's not in the script, but it's something that I feel like we have to do. Like what? Oh my God, so many things. Like it was happening in an improvisation

or just kind of kept going in a moment? Some of it happened in improvisation. Some of it, the thought just popped up and some of it was just like being a termite and seizing the moment. You know, one of those things was one of the biggest ones. Have you seen the whole show? The okra seeds that she carries from beginning to end isn't really in the book. Not that pointedly that it's okra. She has the plot, but she doesn't plant the seeds at the very end of the story.

That was an invention because the prop master on the show came into my office and showed me a dry pot of okra seeds. And he said, Barry, do you know what this is? And I go, yeah, it's okra, but it looks dead. He goes, no, no, no. He opens the pot and all these seeds drop on my desk. And he picks one up and he goes, no matter how dry it gets, if you plant this, it will grow. And he just walked out. And I grew up eating okra.

I know it's this vegetable, this seed that comes from the continent of Africa. The enslaved brought it with them. It was this form of sustenance. And so I have this thing, this legacy. And I go, oh shit, I got to write that in. Wow. There were so many things like that that happened.

And it was such a a grounding point such a grounding point and that was the thing with dealing with magical realism but also dealing with the subject that is rooted in some truthful depiction of history i had to be very careful about i had this mantra nobody's going to levitate in this show good there are going to be trains running underground but they're going to be real fucking trains. There's not a single CGI train in the whole show. It's real trains. We built tunnels above ground, above train tracks and drove actual trains through them. And so where are these very grounded elements that I can turn into a sort of magic, not

the kind of magic that's hocus pocus, the kind of magic that, and I sound like a fucking sap, but the kind of magic that someone just putting faith in an object that has meaning to them and then it fortifying them through this journey. And that's what the ochre seeds were. Right. But it sort of reads like, you know, they're through that theme or having that prop or that piece of magic. You know, a lot of these things tend to sort of manifest as almost, you know know folklore as almost like like stories that could be told that are ambiguous right it was one of those things where when i first picked up the book i wanted to understand you know how and why does this woman leave her child uh behind and it was

clear that it was the world the world was just too damn much. Right. Because growing up, especially my own personal story, you know, I grew up with a mother who was not there in the home and was dealing with so many different, very difficult things. And I never understood why until I was in my 20s. And there were certain conditions

in her world, in her life, that led to, I think, a very similar kind of psychological or psychotic break that led her to this choice to abandon me to a certain degree. And so it was really important to me to build this world because I didn't want the episode to be punitive towards the mother, towards Mabel, towards Cora's mother. And yet I wanted to really present this world that these black women, both Cora and Mabel, are forced to endure.

And while Cora has the strength to get through it, you know, Mabel, unfortunately, does not. But that redemption doesn't come until, like, the last episode. True. I know. I know. I know. I'll make you wait for it. Yeah. But in your own life, though, how did an anger manifest in you through your life? Not an anger. No. I've just never been, I guess, an angry person. Really? I just haven't ever been. One, there's too much in the present moment to deal with, to have that energy towards this almost fictive thing. Because for a while, my mother just wasn't there.

Also, two, something instinctively in me just knew not to blame her. And so, no, I wasn't angry. There were times where I'd be in certain situations where I would realize other people had certain things in their life that I didn't have in my life. And yet I didn't feel bitter towards those people. I just had to find a way to fill in those blanks. Do you think that the idea of not blaming because somebody must have been there to give you support and love in order for you to not have a need in your heart to blame, right? To a certain degree. Yeah. I mean, but also i was just a weird dude man i was just a weird dude and um and and i i was i've always been fortunate to have

people in my life you know whether it be you know my older sister who's exactly 10 years older than me 10 that's a lot who also went through a very similar experience of growing up, but also these teachers and these coaches, that's why. Right. You know, when I'm on a set, I'm kind of like a football coach to a certain degree because those were the father figures that I grew up with. But yeah, there were. I didn't raise myself, absolutely.

Why? Because I think that speaks to what is sort of amazing about the balance you're you're kind of keeping in in all 10 episodes that the the only counterpoint to the brutality and the hopelessness is you know a sense of tenderness and and love and and you don't even i don't even think you lean on faith that much it really is about some sort of like you know ptsd sort of acceptance of what is happening but also this sort of need for community and the idea that they'll survive yeah i agree with that and i do have faith in some some just some innate goodness in humanity despite sure all the other i mean in the film it didn't seem to be it

wasn't it's not a jesus trip i mean it's in there but it really was more about the the poetry of compassion somehow i agree i think also too it's not a nihilistic um depiction of this era of this time period or these characters um and i think sometimes it's hard to process because some of the imagery does not shy away from the nihilism of the time so i think that dichotomy you're talking of that balance man it was fucking difficult man yeah it was really difficult to strike and there were moments where you know i had to make almost like three versions of the scene in my head as i was making it you know there was the version that just allowed the darkness to just completely overtake and overrun the work that we were doing. And then there was the version that tried to curb the darkness so much that it was almost

like an anesthetized version of the story we were telling. And we always had to find a way to really just shoot down the middle and be very truthful about the story we were telling yeah and be mindful of these things but this is what the story demands because it's the experience of the character it's interesting because the nihilism is more in that slave hunter character yeah uh that you know the guy with the agenda that and that sort of repetition i found very effective and and and and made me it really brought some things together for me. That along with some other films I've seen lately that were not black films, but just in terms of the human spirit in a way.

But that character, his name is, I always. Ridgeway. Ridgeway. Yeah, Ridgeway. And the actor is the Australian guy. What's his name again? Joel Edgerton. Great actor. I'm sorry. I'm like, Iway. And the actor is the Australian guy. What's his name again? Joel Edgerton. Great actor.

I'm sorry. I'm like, I don't have anything right in front of me. Not bad with names because I don't know. I'm getting old. But that nihilism, once you track that guy's story, that it is a simple sort of emotional issue that made this monster and that he was irretrievable in terms of what he could do for himself could not self correct could not self-correct didn't want to self-correct if anything was bitterly doubling down right and how nihilistic is that um it's uh it's abhorrent you know and i think uh joel does a great job with it you know it's interesting you mentioned the You mentioned the repetition. Repetition was important to me.

And I'm sure Joel at a certain point was like, why am I saying the same shit? The manifest destiny. The manifest destiny. Important. And part of this, exactly, part of this was the entire five-year process of making this.

Yeah. What was I hearing over and over again? Make America great again. Over and over and over and over again. I'm like, where is this coming from? Where has this been seen? It's like, oh, here's this mantra, this imperialism, this manifest, this quest to just devour and conquer and vanquish everything not like me. And so, yeah, it was important.

It was also important to have this flashback episode, which is touched on in the book, but not as fleshed out as we have in the series to really explore how does this person become this way? Like what the hell is it? And was there anything anyone could have done to have corrected it? I think maybe there was. And so it's, it's tricky. You know, I was, I've been talking about January 6th recently, because again, we're talking about fact and fiction. I was on the mix stage for this show. I remember because we were mixing the show, somebody turned their laptop around.

I could just see the images. I couldn't hear anything. Yeah. In that moment, I know what I'm seeing. This is a fact. This is what I'm seeing. Yes. We're still debating that fact.

But this is what is happening, Mark. It's insane to me that this thing that everyone has seen, we are debating, what is this? It's very clear what this is. But that's because we're up against a fairly shameless and out in the open fascist movement. Right? What we're up against in terms of propaganda and what's being sort of reprocessed as like it wasn't that bad. Like, you know, everything gets very far into the past very quickly. But all I see is a fairly organized push on behalf of the GOP and factions within it to to create minority rule that will last.

I mean, and I just think there's no other way to talk about it. We have a fascism problem. Yeah, it's interesting. You're right. There's no other way to talk about it. We have a fascism problem. Yeah, it's interesting. You're right. There's no other way to talk about it. But what I'm always trying, I just, I grew up and you grew up too in a time before, before there was a way we could all look and see the same thing in the same moment. You know, whether it's the internet or live streaming, things like that. It was better with three networks. It was better with three networks. It might have been.

It might have been only because I've been thinking about the cats that made the Internet and all those Internet entrepreneurs who, for a certain time, were quite arrogant. And I think maybe now we're still quite arrogant. And I was like, why were they so arrogant? I was like, oh, they just assumed we've built this thing that has democratized information. Right. And so now everyone's going to have access to everything. And so you can't tell someone something's blue when it's red because everyone can look it up on the internet

and see that it's red. Right. It's like, no, that's not what happened. That's not what happened, no. That is not what happened. What happened is that there's no sense of history and there's no way to judge fact against fiction. And this is why in this show,

I'm trying to get away from fact or fiction and just speak towards truth. I was watching Reservation Dogs, the first two episodes last night. It's pretty wonderful. It's great. And I'm really proud of that guy. I remember way back in the day, my first feature I made in 2008, and he had a feature that was going around the circuit at the same time. That's how I got to know him a little bit. Seeing him make that show, it's just the fulfillment of so much promise of the kind of stories he's always wanted to tell.

I think it is important that whether it's fact or fiction, that us folks, you know, that we can speak to our own truths now. And I think with the show, yes, the first episode is a little bit hard. Yet there's nothing untruthful about it because I've done the research, Mark, and there is shit way worse. Oh, yeah, man. about it because i've done the research mark and they're shit way worse oh yeah man i remember like that the the one scene that i can never unsee from uh 12 years a slave was when they were knocking that guy's teeth out to force feed him do you remember like and i'm just sort of like you know that's real and and and it's you know just, your whole brain goes like the pain and then the infection and then like that, you know. But this is what, this is where, and it's interesting because I don't want my whole life as an artist to be about this.

Yeah. To be about addressing this thing that we're talking about now. But anytime I hear someone say, make America great again, I think about scenes like that. I think about when. Was it great then? Is that what we want to return to? Because we still have think about scenes like that. I think about when. Was it great then? Is that what we want to return to? Because we still have not atoned for that. So how can we ever be great

until we atone for that? And if that thing is out of sight, out of mind, how will we ever atone for it? And I think there is a responsibility. Man, that's a heavy ass word. To when we have the opportunity. And I had this movie

that won all these awards what could I do with it well this is my time to speak my truth because five years from now I probably won't have the ability to so you this was like the capital that you use from Moonlight undoubtedly yeah I mean I mean the show as I think you know as

as much gravitas as it has as much veracity as it, it's still a really big budget production. Oh, yeah. And I think that to make it at this level required cashing in on that capital, as you say. But it was worth it. I could have gone off and done something else, could have made a little more money, Mark. But this is the thing I had to do. Well, no, but I think that it seems like throughout at least the features that you've done, that it seems like the first two, including Moonlight, that you were sort of,

they were part of your personal journey. That you were resolving things that you were experiencing in terms of defining who you are. Right? Yeah, undoubtedly. Because I know Wyatt. I go back with Wyatt. you know you were experiencing in terms of defining who you are right yeah undoubtedly because i may i know why it you know i go back with why i heard him on the episode i heard him on the show yeah you know he's intense he's an intense guy he is an intense guy but that movie was you know very specific it felt to me that medicine for melancholy was a guy you know a young black man in a situation socially and culturally where it was sort of like how do i fit in here right yeah and did and did you feel like by doing that film that you got some closure on that i did feel like i got some closure on that i think it's

why the next film was about okay well shit where are you from like who are you really um right so the so medicine for melancholy was sort of like uh uh you you've uh uh uh you've explained the surface yes exactly i would agree and it was the surface of where i was at that point i graduated from college and kind of just like bopped around you know i didn't really have any plans or have any goals and uh i'm not even making movies not even or have any goals and uh i met a girl not even making movies not even making movies man i was uh i was in love with this woman and like truly in love with this woman and through her i fell in love with the city uh and then when that um all sort of fell away yeah um it was like well what do you want to do so in san francisco in san

francisco you hadn't gone to film school yet i I'd gone to film school, but I was like six years removed from film school. I'd spent two years in L.A. and didn't enjoy that. Before San Francisco? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was here, man. I was very privileged. I worked on a movie starring Halle Berry. I was the director's assistant.

Which movie? It's called Their Eyes Are Watching God. It was an adaptation of a Zora Neale Hurston novel. My cinematographer now, this guy James Laxton, his mom knew somebody who was working on that film. Yeah. And said, if you come, not got me the gig, but got me in the door. Right. So maybe it's a little bit of nepotism.

Yeah. But she said, if you come here, and I graduated December 14th, if you're here over the Christmas holiday, nobody else will be here, I can maybe get you an interview. With the director. Exactly. Who was it? It was Darnell Martin,

this really awesome director. And so I got my ass on the plane and I came to LA and I slept on a couch for Christmas and New Year's by myself. But I got the interview.

Yeah. And it was myself and I think like five other people. And I got the gig. Yeah. I got the gig. And so my first year

was watching a big ass Hollywood feature come together. And then my second year I worked in development. I was my first year was watching a big-ass Hollywood feature come together. And then my second year, I worked in development. I was an assistant at Harpo Films at Miss Winfrey's company. Those were my first two years. Now, what did you learn on that? Because as somebody who, I did my own show, and I didn't know how a lot of things worked.

I mean, I imagine whatever film school taught you was not what you learned that year. It was not what you learned that year. It was not what I learned that year. But I will say Darnell Martin, who is this woman from New York City. Yeah. She came up with NYU. She was an AC and wrote the script called I Like It Like That, made her first film. Really awesome woman. And she had this mission.

Every time she did a film, she did the pilot for Oz. She did a couple of did the pilot for Oz she did a couple other movies in the prison song she said whenever she had a film yeah she wanted to have her assistant be someone from a disadvantaged background right I would have like at-risk youth and so I was the next in line I think because of where I was from yeah I got this gig Miami yeah and she and she was just really diligent about, if you're going to take this job, you've got to learn something. So I was in every meeting. I was in every rehearsal.

I was next to her every second of that shoot. And so I got to see everything. So that's essential. It was essential. It was like a second film school. It was like a real-ass film school. But I will say, I realized right away, oh, I don't want to do that. Like, I can't do that.

I can't make this work. The directing? The directing and that system, you know? Okay. Because I saw, and it was still, looking back on it, it was a pretty wonderful process for Darnell. But I realized I couldn't do that, not yet. To be beholden to producers and then...

To just the whole thing and also, and that's one element of it, but also being on a set and there are hundreds of people. Yeah. There are movie stars.

There are movie star producers. Right. Just so many things. Yeah. There were things that we... I'm going to stop myself there. Yeah.

Because it's a Darnell story and not mine. Yeah. But she put up with a lot. She carried a lot. I was like, oh, I can't shoulder what she's shouldering. Not right now. You weren't ready.

I wasn't ready. So after two years in L.A., you're like, I get it. You know what, man? I was young and dumb. But thinking back on it, I'm very proud of myself because I was working at Harpo Films. Ms. Winfrey is really good to her employees. I had a 401k for the first time in my life. I had no idea what the hell that was, but somebody told me, you can cash that out early

if you want. Right. You take like a 40, 50% tax hit, but you can cash it out. And I think in like a year and a half, I had accrued like 10 or 12 grand in there. And I had always fantasized about, you know, white kids graduate, not white kids, kids of, kids of means graduate college. They go to backpacking in Europe. It's like, Oh, I can't do that. But, um, but I like trains. I'll backpack around the U S. So I cashed in my 401k and, uh, I just bought train tickets, uh, around the country. And, uh, the first stop

was in San Francisco. I was there for about three months met this young woman and then I just kept going I did train with her no no she she had a real life she had to leave is it interesting about trains yeah we're like you know where what cuz I've taken trains I had a romantic idea about it I took one almost all the way across country but it's weird that the areas they drive through, when people say the other side of the tracks, that's what you see. Exactly. You know, it's what you see.

And also, when you're on, because, you know, you go from San Francisco to New York, you cut through Chicago. That's a long-ass trip. Long. Do you get a sweeper car? You did that whole thing? Hell no. I was trying to make the money stretch, bro.

So, no, I slept upright in that little chair. And then I go to the viewing card during the day. And you actually, I didn't realize it back then, because the lines weren't as finely delineated back then. But it was probably someone who's anti-vax, probably someone who thinks January 6th meant this thing and not that thing. You're sitting right next to them. There's nothing to do but talk. And it was a really wonderful experience, man. And I got a lot of things that I had in my head.

I got them out of my head. Well, I think that in speaking to that, in speaking to how people handle information they put in their head versus what their life really is, because I think that whatever you learned over time, that in Underground Railroad, even with Edgerton's character, the slave hunter, that you, I wouldn't say that you made him an empathetic character, but you made him

human. Yeah, I agree. And my job, and Joel's really good about this too, you know, his first thing out of his mouth was, I know, Barry, I don't want to redeem this character. That's not what I'm here for. I know that's not what you're here for. And this idea of empathy for the character, even that was a very fine line yeah but he's a human being and also too i thought i'm not afraid to show that he's a human being i think it's almost

imperative to show that he's a human being that way people don't go i'm a human that's a monster that thing is over there and i'm over here no No, no, no, no, no. And by the time you get the backstory, you're like, nah. It is some kind of empathy. But because you're like, oh, well, when you really realize that most of this political fury and misdirected anger and even racism in some cases is because they're emotionally crippled because of legacy.

Mm-hmm. Right? That, you know, it's hard not to be empathetic. You don't want to redeem the guy. Well, it's interesting, man, because when you really trip back, deep, deep back through, you go back to the colonies and how even the very beginning now I'm talking about the colonists fighting off the British yeah you know and this idea of legacy and where that comes from you know is there always going to be this perpetual chip you know on on the shoulder of of true I'm using air quotes now of true Americans and is that thing going to create this situation where there's always this very dark sort of like pit, you know, at the core of whatever the American ideal is?

Because at some point, you know, I don't know what purity there is in something that's driven so much by this darkness, this bitterness, this anger. But that's kind of at the root to a certain degree. If you really trip down, we're out when i make a history lesson but i really tripped out into it it kind of gets a little a little muddled you know yeah yeah muddy well yeah and and and yeah i've just started to sort of feel that they're they're you know some days i don't necessarily have hope but i i have you know some sense that maybe the truth can prevail. But most days, I'm sort of like, we're fucked. You know, that's the hard thing with making the show.

You kind of go into some really dark places. I saw it. Yeah. And you're kind of just like, you're engulfed in this darkness. Because it's 116 days over, I don't know, like six or seven months. And every day you get there and you know you have to reach out and touch something very dark. You know, now you're touching it for a reason. You're trying to excavate it and hopefully show in some way like what it truly is, how it comes to be. And maybe that can unlock. If I can see it, if I can see it, then at least in acknowledging it, there's got to be some way I can address it i can see it if i can see it then at least in acknowledging it there's got to be some way i could address it that's the hope well i guess right no well i mean i think that there's there's a lot of hope in in the sense of uh survival family compassion oh in the show yeah yes for the listeners i do think there is hope in the show oh no this is for you personally i was saying for me

personally how often did did the cast have to take a breath um because of the of what was happening not too often oh really not too often i mean there were very one there are some some things i didn't know about you know too so actually admitted to me the other day, there's this, what I thought was a very simple scene, um, in the next to last episode, you know, after she's walking down the street after the big action sequence, her lover shot in the back and then Ridgeway picks her up off the ground and he's dragging her back to the wagon.

Yeah. I didn't realize it, but too. So admitted to me, we were doing a Q and a recently and she said, yeah, I had to go to the therapist after that scene and because I had to have her help me come back to myself and get away from the character and this is maybe like 75

days in and so that's it that that's relentless yeah because at some point you're like is anything gonna turn and you realize historically no no no you haven't read the book. Yeah. And in the book, it's even more relentless. It's even more relentless. The little girl's not there for her to go back to. And she doesn't get to stand over him, you know, and pop, pop, pop.

Right. Speeds a few shots at him. I feel like I needed that catharsis. And I felt like the audience needed that catharsis as well. Yeah. But you're right. It is relentless. And it was relentless.

You know, it was relentless. It still is relentless. It still is. But I will say, though, the fact that I am here. No, I get it. Yeah, yeah. For sure. That I am sitting here.

And that there is now a cultural conversation. There's a cultural conversation. And I got to harness all these tools to recreate the image of my ancestors. There's something very hopeful in that. I can tell you this, having read the testimonies of these people, you know, of the real life people, these characters in some ways are based on the idea of me creating this thing of us, myself and these actors in this crew creating this thing. It would just be, I just can't even imagine. There were times where I tried to imagine.

It was too overwhelming. Oh, at the beginning to when you were taking on the task? Exactly. Well, I mean, it seems to me that the jump from the first film, Medicine for Melancholy and Moonlight, it seemed like there was a tremendous education that happened in between those two, and there seemed to be a lot of years.

There were a lot of years. A lot of years. The education, not so much. I think I grew to the degree that I understood what it was I wanted to do. I think you've picked at it, man, and nobody's picked at it in that way. You know, I love my first film. I do. But think you've picked at it, man, and nobody's picked at it in that way. You know, I love my first film.

I do. But there is something surface about it as far as it relates to me as a person. Whereas once you get to Moonlight, it is deep down in the pit of my stomach. Like, there is nowhere to hide. And so I think Moonlight, medicine is more intellectual.

Yeah. Whereas Moonlight is like from the gut. And you made choices around how to shoot in that way. And it seems that from the beginning that, you know, you are a filmic thinker. That, you know, that whatever your relationship is with your cinematographer, it seems to be of the essence of how, you know, of what you are as an auteur, right? Yeah, yeah. of how, you know, of what you are as an auteur, right? Yeah, yeah.

And I also think, too, especially with this one talking about the show, the book already exists. Yeah. I don't want a fucking Pulitzer, you know? And so as far as... The material was there. Exactly. Well, but I mean, as far as words go,

it's been maxed out. But now I have the sun, you know, I have the earth, I have light, I have all these people embodying these, these expressions. This is going to create a whole different thing, a whole new level of experience. You know, it should elevate what's on the page. It's, it's, it should sublimate the feelings that are on the page. And so I think when we get out there in the field and you're right, we approach moonlight the same way, but we don't have a lot of time. We don't have a lot of time we don't have a lot of tools but hot damn what is here that is truly truly uh you weren't using the word but the word

that came to my mouth was pungent you were talking about going to bevel yeah yeah you're saying how you had this meal yeah and just the way you were describing it and the look on your face it was like that shit was pungent yeah yeah every flavor was in the back of mark's jaws just like lighting up every muscle and when we were making moonlight we were like where's the pungent shit yeah because we only got 25 days if everything is pungent we're going to have the most immersive evocative film and we've just carried that through everything we do well we right i mean i could see it you everyone was sort of sweaty it was hot yeah everyone was glistening you know you It's just like the idea of the sweat and hair products and feet.

Yeah. I mean, and also like the beach, that whole thing. Yeah. But yeah, but that movie, it seems to be, I don't know how much you kept from the source material, but it does seem to have a lot of your story in it. No? It's got a lot of my story in it and a lot of the playwrights rome and craney story do you know that guy uh i know him now

you know i didn't know him then and i should have we grew up blocks from each other really and went to some of the same schools uh i'm a year older than him although i look eight years older than him because he's uh he's just one of those people oh yeah, yeah. But, yeah, our lives, both our moms went through the same thing. Which was what? An addiction to crack cocaine. Yeah. The 1980s in Miami was just. Yeah.

Nightmare, huh? Yeah. It was a rough time, man. It was a rough time. And it was a rough time in the deindustrialization of working class jobs in Miami at this time. Yeah. And just the infestation of narcotics, very cheap narc Miami at this time yeah and just the infestation of narcotics very cheap narcotics at this time I just created this very predatory environment yeah, and both my mom his mom fell prey to those things so I knew that story

Yeah, it was one of those things Marcus I'm glad you brought him up because I think he created this opening for me to go into my gut With my art because I would have never i was too afraid to touch that story i didn't want to go to that place with myself and i thought i kind of you know he kind of played a trick on me i thought oh this shit's about him this is not about me yeah but then you get there and you know because the resources are so limited you start to rely on your instinct and in doing that you're very readily just revealing more and more about yourself and so yeah the movie's very you know it's kind of lovely that both of us could get could work through so many of these things about our very personal lives in this very

public way that when people engage that film to this day to this day you know i'm 41 hopefully i'll still be doing this when i'm 61 yeah but i'm probably not going to touch anyone as viscerally as i did with that film oh yeah like what in in in the sense of who do you find it resonates with oh my every there's no it crosses it crosses all demographics bro yeah i have had 60 year old white men cry in my arms literally cry in my arms at the screenings of this film and of course there are young black kids who are trying to to voice who they are who see this film and some of them tell me you know this film this film saved my life some of them tell me this film made me want to be a filmmaker so i could tell my story right and it's like, I remember watching things by people I admire and going, your film made

me want to be a filmmaker so I can tell my story. Like who? Oh, Claire Denis, Warren Carwine, Spike Lee, Lin Ramsey. Yeah. I mean, so many of these really wonderful people that I discovered in film school because they were just very passionately reflecting their lives you know through this visual imagery and i thought lynn ramsey especially uh but someone i actually got to meet yeah when i first went to film school she had this movie called rat catcher which is about these kids growing up in um in this uh this ghetto uh in in scotland and it's this place where there's

like a trash strike so there's just there's just shit everywhere it reminds me of this james baldwin quote from if bill shrie Street Could Talk where he says, you know, the kids have been told that they weren't worth shit and everything around them proved it. That is Ratcatcher in a nutshell, the environment. And so I go to this film festival and this woman's there. And her second film, Morvan Callow, is at the fest. And I spoke to her and she spoke to me. Mark, she spoke to me. Mark, she spoke to me.

I would ask her a question, she would ask me a question. I mean, there were 50 of us in the classroom, so all of us kids, we would speak to her, she would speak back. And it was clear, here is someone from a place like me who was working at a level so far beyond me and yet everything about her is saying to me, you and me, we're the same and we do the same thing i just happen to be here and you just happen to be there right now but there's no

reason you can't sit in this chair right and it was just so that shit was affirming bro yeah life changing it was affirming and i've gone out and done q a's for moonlight especially when it was out yeah at least and i could see i could see young people having that same experience with me well i mean you know the the thing that you're able to do and i i said this to to leasel tommy yesterday because you know she did respect and i was in that film and you know i see how she's shooting and i said i said to her i brought you up and and how you shoot the black body on fit like and i'm like nobody seems to do it like that, that there's some sort of, it's not even saturated. I don't know what it is.

It's an attention paid. I don't know what lens you're using or why, but the effect of it is amazing. And also, you choose to hold, you spend time. Yeah. You know, I think it's an attention paid for sure. And I think that, you know, think i think it's an attention paid for sure and i think that you know i'm amongst a group uh of of peers who are working in this way right now um it's just for whatever

reason you know my work has landed in the center of certain spaces and and uh some of these other folks uh are still doing work that is every bit you know probably in my opinion uh even stronger but maybe they're fine there's's this guy named Khalil Joseph. Yeah. Who's really amazing. He's more a fine artist. Yeah. He does these music videos, and he does these installation pieces that play at museums,

that screen at these very big art festivals. He's absolutely wonderful. And then Bradford Young, the cinematographer, who films primarily for Ava DuVernay, but does other people's work as well. He was nominated for Arrival. Amazing, amazing. We're all sort of in the same age group. There's some painters, too.

Oh, my God. Kerry James Marshall. Exactly. Is kind of like the be-all, end-all, in my opinion. Sort of like an inspiration of magical realism. Exactly, exactly. But very grounded. Right.

The thing with Mr. Marshall that's really cool that I discovered, because you were saying, you know, is it a lens? Is it a this? Yeah. What's really cool right now is myself and my cinematographer and our color correction guy, Alex Bickle, you know, we can sit down and we know all the actors who are in the cast. And right away, you know, Bickle is creating these film stocks

he's creating these film stocks as we're filming knowing the cast and knowing how we want to represent the skin and the final product and everything we're doing is is kind of like it's like subduing the camera subduing the lens so that it is prioritizing um this flesh and so yeah to a certain degree it is very uh very orchestrated but kerry james marshall i remember reading that in in building the paints that he the colors that he paints with yeah he's combining all these pigments you know and so it's not just black you know it's this black that is very very concentrated you know in this spectrum or that spectrum yeah just a really lovely way of working.

But yeah, man, it's kind of cool. It's not something that I think about intellectually, but I'm thinking of this moment in the show where it's a blink and you miss it kind of moment. But in the first Indiana episode, we go away from the two main characters and there's this woman just walking down the side of the grass. And she approaches this poet.

And they have this very sexy conversation. She says, you speak some pretty fine words. If I gave you my sorrows, would you make them sound pretty? And that's not in the script. It's not in the script, Mark. I just had these two actors who were just both. That was the proposal. It was the in the script, Mark. I just had these two actors who were just both, they had chemistry. That was the proposal.

It was the proposal, exactly. They had chemistry. They were just, it was just something very, very beautifully just like black and sensual and seductive about them.

And I thought, I have got to do something with that. Now, I'm making a show. I've got 116 days. Yeah. I ain't got a lot of time to do something with that.

Right. And so what can I do? Well, I have a camera. I have an amazing operator, this guy, Jarrett Morgan, a.k.a. DePossum, my nickname DePossum, because he could worm his way in all these places. Yeah. And I decided to him, she's going to walk down there and they are going to have the loveliest, the hottest conversation about words.

Yeah. And he's going to get on his knee and you just got to drift down there and you be the third party. Yeah. And we did it. It on his knee and you just got to drift down there and you be the third party. Yeah. And we did it. It was just something off on the side that we did. And when I watched the show,

I'm so glad that moment's in there because here we have the story. Glenn makes the top of our conversation. He's a minister, right? He's the guy. He's kind of a minister. He's a poet kind of thing. Okay.

Yeah. He goes around running his mouth preaching and speaking. Like she says, he has mighty fine words. So what were you saying at the top of the conversation? At the top of the conversation, we were talking about how, you know, it's relentless and it's very dark and it's dealing with all these very heavy things. But there's a balance. There's a tenderness.

Always. Because that moment is so unspeakably tender. And here's the important thing about telling a story set in this time. Yeah. These tender moments, they also happen. They had to happen. That, yeah. There's just no way I would be sitting here talking to you if they didn't.

But that was the human spirit. That was the thing that elevated it. That like, you know, because you ask yourself, and I imagine you did as well, how the fuck did we survive this shit? How do we keep going in the face of this and it's so easy and almost hackneyed to to sort of hang it on jesus or community but you know i'll admit to you yeah i did ask that question because i not that i betrayed myself but i'm i'm very i'm very adamant about you know the director being sort of the compass on set. And on this one, I was like, I got to be strong.

I got to be strong for everybody. And I never leave a set. I'm always there. I just don't leave, no matter how hot it is. And it was hot as hell on some of these days, or how cold. It was cold as hell some of these days. I'm not going to go sit on the heater. I'm going to be on set.

When we did the sequence where the character big anthony is is burned alive oh my god now there's no there's no fire yeah you know there's no fire but the whip is not real you know there's the guy is on a harness yeah and yet it still felt so damn real so much so that even though the background in there and this is true these spectacles they weren't just for spectacle's sake. People were forced to watch, you know, as a show of this will happen to you. It was a way of inducing control, of preserving the sort of hierarchy. And so the backgrounds there, they're watching this thing.

We're doing it, even though there's no fire, there's no blood, none of that, all those visual effects. I walked off you know we we we were just about to finish the scene i was deciding to do another take and i was sitting there and i just broke man i started crying i was like you know what i can't i can't i can't have the crew see if you cry and so i walked off my own set and and i was just walking i don't know where i went i just started walking yeah and i realized oh fuck. I don't know where I went. I just started walking and I realized, oh, fuck, my ancestors couldn't walk off this set. Yeah.

They couldn't. Yeah. They couldn't. Right. I had to go back. And so I took myself back. Yeah. Thankfully, you know,

I worked with all my friends and so when I got back, cinematographer James Lacks is my best friend. I've known this guy for 20 years. He's already, he's got us moving on

to the next thing. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think he knew because he's never seen me done that. He knew shit he needs a moment and you know what he's allowed this moment right and we'll keep the machine going yeah and then he'll come back and slip right in and i did but uh but in that moment i felt this guilt because no one i'm depicting had

the luxury had the privilege had the ability to this, to extricate themselves from this moment. And so, yeah, when people say, oh, I couldn't get through the first episode or I couldn't get to the second episode, you know, I wish my ancestors had that luxury. Well, but I think that like, you know, it's short sighted and it's reactive. it's reactive and uh the the truth is is i think what you've created here in in terms of and also it's that sort of strange improvisational adventure that you got hung up on there with the poet and the words is that you know you're really working within poetry here right so you know the balance that we keep talking about is that the language of the human heart and human tenderness and some sort of strange innate compassion that seems to be real that we lose touch of every day because of what we do to our heads is really the through line of this thing. It's not the violence. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree. Even when those things are misused, you know, the other moment of improvisation that I'm really proud of is in that Tennessee episode. I've talked about this a bit in the press. Yeah. The conversation that Joel and Chase, that Ridgway and Homer have by the lake, that's improvised as well. It's not planned. After the enslaved man, Jasper, escapes in the yellow fever camp, he's kneeling before the cross. Ridgway finds him and he's like, no time for that.

And then the very next scene, the little boy Homer's just standing by a lake and Ridgway walks up to him and he hands him these keys. And he says these words to him. He says, you know, it's just you and me. And then he goes on this mantra. You have to be strong like me. You have to be watchful like me.

And then he says, you have to take pride in your work because so much of the indoctrination of american exceptionalism so much of the indoctrination of all these things we're hearing you know this idea of making america great again you know it's about this pride it's so much about i don't want to be ashamed of my this i don't want to be ashamed of my that so much about this pride, these mantras, this repetition. And I thought, I'm still struggling to understand what this relationship between this man and this boy is. But I kind of know something about it when I see it. It's grooming, it's indoctrination, it's manipulation, it's seduction.

And so I thought, like me, like me, I just want these words. And so as we were filming on that day, I went to the bathroom when I came out I texted Joel a few lines and I said I'm not gonna tell chase what we're doing but if we get ahead on the day it's gonna be this beautiful chase it's a little kid chase the little kid how old is that kid he was 10 when we filmed he's probably 11 and a half because he seemed it was an interesting that character was that in the book that was in the book yeah because like you know. Because it's weird when you think about how the idea of Tom-ing is created. And then you sort of see this little guy dressed up like that and you start thinking Tom Thumb.

Because he was really a little man. And he seemed to represent something very insidious. Very insidious, and also, too, I sometimes wonder how certain people, again, come to be the way they are. And I think going back to childhood is always, I think, a really important, not the only way, but a really important way to excavate some of those things. Yeah. So, yeah, the characters in the book, I was very afraid of this character. You know, I think it's a very difficult thing to have a child do, a child actor. Some of the things that this character does in the show.

Yeah. And also, too, you have to be very aware, what am I communicating? Because, you know, I don't want anyone to hate this child to hate this child the child playing you know what the weird fucking thing was is that i think the most the the most endearing and strangely empathetic moment that you have with that kid is when he he handcuffs himself to sleep that's in the book. Yeah. Do you know what I mean, though?

I do know what you mean. When I got to that moment in the book, I was like, fuck. Yeah. I mean, it says everything without verbally saying anything. Yeah. But it says everything. Well, he becomes sort of this mythological character. everything. Well, he becomes sort of this mythological character. Like, you know, you don't look at him totally as a child until, because usually with a character like that, you need

them to break. And when he does, it's because his master is gone. And then again, that character deserves empathy. Because he has a future that's different now. That's very different, although I joke about that kid's going to be just fine. He's going to clam up out of there. He'll figure it out. He's going to worm his way into some other person's heart.

That kid's going to be just fine. But he does seem to be symbolic after a certain point. I didn't look at his humanity as much as what he represented yeah i i agree and that's the place where where i landed with him you know the thing is uh you know joel's such a great actor and joel and chase um you know had such a wonderful way of working together and when you're dealing with a child actor the adult in the scene with the child is helping you direct that person. And so, you know, credit to Joel for all the wonderful work Chase does in the show. And yet it was clear to me, you know, once I started badgering Coulson, the author, that, yeah, he is a symbol of certain things.

If I ever got to the bottom of what he symbolizes I'm not sure just the evolution from if Beale Street could talk towards accepting and challenging yourself with the awesome responsibility which I have to assume you saw Underground Railroad as being did the experience of working with with baldwin's texts specifically

and and honestly in beale street sort of awaken your uh ability to to sort of take on that responsibility uh it did it did and but but not in the way i expected um you know because mr baldwin is no longer with us you know i couldn't call him as a resource to ask him, is it okay if I do this? What do you think if I do that? I just decided to hew very close to the text with the exception of the ending. And it wasn't until way deep in the process, and I'm sure you've been through this, through testing this and testing that, that I realized, oh, shit, I have to take the ending. Like, I now, I can't hide behind the text. I have to take it. What was the ending?

The ending in the book is brutal. It's brutal. Fonny's mom, her mom comes home and basically tells her that Fonny's dad has killed himself. And that induces her to go into labor. And it's implied that Fonny just stays and rots in prison. And I thought, I can't end this film. And I filmed it that way. I can't have this film end on this child coming into the world with a father who's essentially lost

and a grandfather who's lost. Who's literally lost as well. And so I went in and tried to have, again, fact. Now I'm thinking of this book as fiction, but if you say the translation, this is what actually happens in the book. But what's the truth of what happens in the book? What's the feeling I can arrive at

that I think still speaks to what Mr. Baldwin intended, but was the ending that I felt like represented what I think still speaks to what Mr. Baldwin intended, but was the ending that I felt like represented what I want to say with the book. And so I came up with this alternate version. And it's not like it's a happy ending. It's not a happy ending. Exactly. It's not a happy ending.

You didn't sell it out. No, I didn't sell it out, but I did have to take possession of it. Right. Because really, as you're saying it, as you speak it, because I didn't read the book, that it's clear that Baldwin was doing that for effect. He was pissed. Yes. He was pissed. So what you did was just shave off the sort of self-inflicted violence and the violence of faith or whatever.

And you made it an intimate reality of what probably would have happened. And so then moving into Underground Railroad, because Coulson was there, I decided right away that the text of the text and the show was the show. You know, especially working with a group of writers, we had a writer's room of a really wonderful people, a very small one, you know, where, where do we see ourselves in this book, you know, and where, where's the edge of the book, but we feel like the edge of the show can be here. And so the young girl who's in the attic with her in North Carolina is not in the book at all. Um, she goes in the attic and she's in the attic by herself for like 80 pages. And I thought, oh, I can't have the audience sitting in here with this woman for 60 minutes. And she has no one to talk to.

But also, too, it was a great moment. I thought Colson created a great window. So much of this is about this woman maybe coming to terms or finding some way to understand the sacrifice her mother had to make. So, oh, she's in this environment. Now she has to mother. So that's why we decided to put the little girl in the attic with her. Once we did, I also realized, oh, shit, I can't leave that girl behind. You know, I don't want that on my consciousness.

I don't want it on the audience's consciousness. Yeah, I didn't know. It's like, you know, I mean, and then you kind of, you go back to this weird, you know, like after you do leave her behind, and what did you give us, like 15 minutes? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it's like, gosh, back door. Which, and everything about that episode is filmed in a way.

That's your idea of giving us a break. She gets dragged out. I know, I know. But it's good. It's good. It worked. Would you have rather would you rather seen it and assume that little girl burned to the ground i just didn't i

didn't know how much car it could take true do you know i mean like that's a moment where you're like you know how did how does the spirit survive this right and she doesn't know that that kid lived she doesn't know and she just had to take like the what was going the way that that actress played that you know we you know where you start to realize the the the the burden of of of inexplicable uh violence ongoing to self and others and and no way to get out of it that you know what does that do to the heart you know in terms of there's no way to even process that grief so like but somehow or another that tricks you know made it work i mean there's no way to process that grief but when you really sort of like map out what you're seeing you know this is the generation of women that give birth to the women who give

birth to MLK. Yeah. You know, who create this movement that opens to Malcolm X, that creates this movement, this environment to W.B. Du Bois. This is literally the generation of women that give birth to W.B. Du Bois, that open this movement that does create, to degree a more perfect union yes to some degree because you go from 1865 to 1965 and 1965 is fucking huge for the complexion of this country it's not just the civil rights of black folks is also

the Immigration Act you know that brings all folks opens all these opportunities and has this ricochet effect over the whole world. And the women who gave birth that generation, this is what they had to go through. Well, I started to feel that. Yeah, I felt that. I felt like, you know, like when you see that generation, it's probably mostly gone. But, you know, there was suggestions in, you know, in some of the later episodes when, you know, when she suggestions in, you know, in some of the later episodes when, you know, when she arrives in the city.

And I can't I can't remember exactly what it was where you realize, like, you don't know, you know, until you sit down with like an old woman, you know, who had like it's like it's also in the same sense of Holocaust survivors. Right. That, you know, like it's something that the survival drive doesn't really have time for grief. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. Right. It doesn't because if it is unfortunate because, you know, these psychological effects that we know so much about now, we don't know everything about. Sure. Oh, my God.

They must have been just like over overrun. Oh, you mean with PTSD? Exactly. PTSD. So much. So much psychological trauma um working almost in a trance exactly working almost in a trance right living almost in a trance dying in a trance yes um undoubtedly and so you're right and i think one of the things

that's really lovely about tussauds performance who plays cora as you can feel her she's leaving all these people behind but she's not leaving them behind. Right. That's why these faces recur so much throughout the show. They just keep recurring, just keep recurring. She's carrying these people with her. And how does that manifest itself? She falls down the ladder. Ridgway's lying on his back.

She gets on the hand cart. She could go, but not going to repeat. I'm going to close the circle, the cycle of abandonment. And she goes back, she grabs that girl. It doesn't, doesn't happen in the book. She goes back and she grabs that girl. Um, and she takes care of business and she takes care of business, which also is not in the book. Yeah. But that was, but you know, the weird thing is, it doesn't read as justice. It reads as this has to stop. It is this has to stop. And I remember we were doing these portraits we cut to, you know, as she's walking. And we just started doing those, Mark.

We were making the show. And I looked over at the background actors one day. And I was like, fuck, they look amazing. It's not even the right word. I look at them and I feel things. We just have to pause what we're doing and capture this. And as we started filming them. Oh, and they're all standing still.

And they're all just standing still. We call them these portraits. I remember saying to James, the cinematographer, I was like, you know what? She's going to get off that hand cart. She's going to grab that gun. She's going to be walking towards him. And we're going to see all these faces.

And she's going to stand over him. him and we're gonna see all these faces and she's gonna stand over him and we're gonna see all these faces he's gonna be running his fucking mouth yeah and we're gonna see all these faces now what i didn't plan what i could never plan is she pops him and tussauds this young woman she's so amazing she cries i i does not script it whatever emotion that came out of her that's what came out of her and every take she would stand over him and shoot him you know we had these quarter loads and then these tears would come and i was like yo i i didn't expect you to release that i knew you'd release something yeah you know i didn't expect her to jump in the air and whoop and holler high five but i didn't expect that that shit's real bro every single take and it's right because it's that it's like all the grief you were talking about all these things she's carrying all these people something it's just got to stop yeah and when it

stops it doesn't take the pain away right it doesn't take the pain away i think that's why she releases that emotion she releases that tear yeah but it does stop this thing and the journey goes on right um yeah it's really i mean making the show was oh it's hellified how how is it like you you seem to feel and i think rightfully so that you know you you did a great job i'm i'm happy with the show yeah because i feel it i think it's it definitely has a masterpiece feel and it's and it's thorough and it's affecting and you know it is of its own what how is it being received i have no idea uh i have no idea either critically i mean it did great um by the way i think thorough is the right word i do feel like it's a thorough piece of work.

And sometimes you go to work and you're like, oh, did I do my best today? I think I did the best I could. And whenever I have that feeling, I feel really good. Moonlight, I felt I did the best I could. I think Bill Street, I could have done a little better. This one, I did the best I could. And it's just big. Yeah, and it is big.

That's just me, my own personal opinion of it you know I wish more people were watching it I wish more people were talking about it do you sense how has it landed in the black community do you have any sense it's interesting because right now we can't physically go to any community I miss being able to go to Q&As.

You know, I would have loved to have gone to Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, you know, sat in an auditorium and talked to people about the show. What I get incoming on social media is very positive. Before the show came out, what I got incoming on social media was very negative. People just reject these imageries, sight unseen. People just don't want to be reminded of the grief that you and I have been talking about, you know, of the weight. People are ashamed at seeing these images of degradation and subjugation,

so much so that they don't even want to wade through those images to get to images of hope, images of tenderness. One of the things that was really really just like just shocking for me personally making this show it was a real something i knew but it's one thing to know something and to feel it um which was we had a guidance counselor for the run of show we had a therapist who was always on set woman who one day pulled me off my own set because she felt like she could see that i was carrying too much of the trauma of the show and not processing it pulled me off my own set mark really yeah yeah pull me off set uh because we empowered her we said this yes the director

says action says cut uh this woman miss kim kim white yeah um she supersedes me if she sees that you um cannot do what you need to do or that you need to process something she can stop everything wow what did she put me off my own set man um but um what'd she say uh she said uh she said are you okay i said yeah i'm fine she said no you're not fine you're not not okay. What's going on? I go, ah, you know, it was near the end of filming, uh, the first chapter, Georgia, we filmed the first and last chapter, Georgia and Mabel back to back. Cause they were in the same locations. So I was carrying all that around and I was saying to her, uh, yeah, you know, I'm good. She goes, no, you're not good. I know. I know. I said, I know I'll deal with it this weekend.

You know, I can't let the crew, you know know see me not not keep it together she goes yeah you're trying to keep it together for the crew but who's gonna direct this show when you can't keep it together uh for you yeah and so we sat down and this is like you know 10 p.m at night on a split and so we're like time is right time is time yeah um but But she would not let me go back until I talked to her. Did you release? I did release. I did. I did.

It was, there was the day before there was an actor who does something that's not even violent. Yeah. I'm in the very first episode when the owner of the plantation brings the kid over to read the Declaration of Independence. the owner of the plantation, brings the kid over to read the Declaration of Independence, there's this one enslaved man, prideful, who grabs the kid and says, here, this boy can do it.

You know, he's with Michael, he pushes him into the center. It just unlocks something in the actor who had to grab the little boy. And he just, he had a hard time with it. And so she went and talked to him. And seeing how, and this is a really gregarious guy seeing how

affected he was by this thing isn't it wasn't even wasn't that he was whipping someone yeah but psychologically he had placed this child in harm's way and he he had a he had a hard time separating himself from that yeah and i just realized you know i just had this thought it's like you know am i doing the right thing oh yeah by bringing all these people into the story and you know we talked and you know what she had to say was very smart and and she once she had already talked to him yeah and it and it served her function she had done what she was there to do because we paused when when when i saw do that, that he was losing it. I said to her, you need to go talk to him. And so we paused on that day.

And then on this day, because I had then, it's weird. When you're doing these things, it's like spiritual transference, especially when you're all in it together. You know, it affects one. It affects us all. And yet I was having, I had this person there who was really wonderful in there to make sure we could all release. I wasn't releasing. Yeah. I wasn't releasing the damn thing.

And so, yeah, she pulled me to the side, bro. Pulled me to the side. And we got through it. That's great. And then we kept it moving. Whose decision was it to hire that person? You know, this is where i will give the studio credit i will give the studio credit from the very first meeting yeah because i knew we were going to have

an intimacy coordinator right but this was something even uh even above that yeah studio said yeah we're gonna have to have a therapist on set at all times a trauma counselor literally well to soften it with her technical term was a guidance counselor. But she's a licensed clinician. Right. And yeah, she helped a lot of people get through some things. Wow. So heavily used. Oh, you know what?

As in heavily used in the beginning. I'll come back to the answer I was going to give about shame. Heavily used in the beginning. As we got further and further into it, less and less, especially amongst the uh the the black actors in the crew because we were you were you were teeing up this this idea of shame uh you were saying what has been the response in the community and you're saying how there are certain people who rejected the show sight unseen because they don't want to deal with this trauma it elicits these feelings of shame yeah and in making the show in the beginning yeah i would see miss white go over

and she would talk and she'd be talking to the black cast who were embodying the enslaved and then as we kept going and kept going and kept going i would see less of that and i would see more um some of the white crew going over to grab miss white yeah um and one of the things that was very clear not everything we did was shameful because there were some very tender moments in the show. There were some very empowering moments in the show. But when the shame did reveal itself, it was very clear.

I'm speaking as a black person now. The shame is not ours. And that was something that became very clear to me. I knew that intellectually, but to feel it, I think, was a very interesting thing. Wow. And it took a minute. It took a minute, yeah.

Yeah. It took a minute because we hide these images. Even in scouting the show, the plantation houses exist. Right. On the same properties, the slave quarters have been erased. And so we built them from scratch. And when you build these things, and Mark Freebird freebird our production designer did a really wonderful job when you step into them and you see them there are 12 people living in a shack who what human being was subject another human being to

this well that was the other thing i'm sure it's in the book that the constant referral to it yes not he or she yes that was in the book we actually dialed it back a a little bit and some of the things in the georgia chapter in the book you know and coles is not lying about anything you know it's all rooted in truth um but yeah the uh you know again he won a pulitzer for the book um and joel did a great job turning that phrase yeah no i i mean the the whole thing was amazing it had a profound effect on me and it was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you, bro. Pleasure's all mine.

Yeah, man. Did you do the whole intro with the what the fuck guys, what the fuck girls? Not yet. Not that's later. I'll do that before. I do these separate, and then I'll do that later so I can figure out how to set you up. Thank you, man. I appreciate it.

Yeah, man. It was great talking to you. Thank you, man. There you go. Watch it. If you can handle it, you should. Take it on. Underground Railroad is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

That was Barry Jenkins. You're just checking in as if it were. I think this is a radio show. If you only caught half of that, that was Barry Jenkins, director of underground railroad. Okay. Okay.

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