Digital Studioz Podcast
Digital Studioz Podcast hosted by EL, Parrish and Jimmy Lennar The podcast where you never know what you will hear .
Digital Studioz Podcast
Hollywood, Truth & Big Red: The Hawthorne James Interview
In this unforgettable episode of the Digital Studioz Podcast, legendary actor Hawthorne James (best known as Big Red from The Five Heartbeats) joins EL and Parrish for a raw and eye-opening conversation. From working with Rudy Ray Moore to the harsh realities of Hollywood politics, Mr. James shares wisdom, war stories, and personal experiences from decades in the industry. He opens up about his love for theater, the racism he witnessed in executive rooms, and why standing on principle has cost him millions — but never his integrity. This one is a masterclass.
Ladies and gentlemen, Paris. Yes. Do you know today's guest? I do. Today's guest has been on shows like Martin, movies like Speed with Keanu Reeves, movies like Seven with, who's on that, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. This guy right here has been on One of our favorites, The Five Heartbeats, and he's definitely had the biggest role to me in that movie. Today's guest is Mr. Hawthorne James. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. How's everything? Everything is wunderbar. It is great. It is. We're so happy to have you on the show. I know we've been trying to get you on the show for a couple weeks and it finally worked out. How do you say in Paris, the stars aligned? Yeah, they did. How's everything today, man? Oh, it's all good, man. Great, great. I'm still on this side of the graph. That's what counts. Is that the upside? The right side. It ain't the upper room, so it don't matter. Well, Mr. James, please let our guests know some of the movies you have been in and some of the theaters, shows that you have been in. Oh, man. The theater. I've been in over 300 plays in my lifetime. Wow. Yeah, you know, I have, I've been doing this since I was in kindergarten. So, you know, but all my degrees are in theater. So I have a bachelor's from Notre Dame in theater. I have a master's from University of Michigan. I got scholarship offers from Yale and Cornell to work on my doctorate and I turned that down. But I taught in the theater department at Illinois State University and Then when I met Ted Lange out here in California, Teddy got me... Ted was the bartender at the Love Boat, but Ted got me a scholarship to study at the London Shakespeare Academy in London, England. So theater is just extensive. I mean, whether it be directing, writing, producing, that extensive resume for theater is... It's my thing. I don't do as much as I used to, as much as I want to, because it's a rough road. It's a lot of hard work as opposed to film and television. Film, you can do things over. If you mess it up, of course you can do it over, but you only get one shot in theater, so you have to have that rehearsal time. You have to be able to put that time into it. But that's my love with theater. But people know, they can look it all up. You know, from my very first movie with Rudy Ray Moore and the disco godfather, you know, I tell everybody all the time, it's like, that was great because of the fact that I made$50 a day back in 1979. Wow. And that was a lot of money. I'd never made$50 a day in my life. But it's only, I only worked for like two, I think it was just two days. I don't think it was three. I think it was just two days, but that was my beginning of film, you know? So I'm very grateful for that. And I'm very grateful for Rudy Ray Moore. What you saw, And that Rudy Ray Moore, that thing called, I don't know what it was, Eddie Murphy, that wasn't who Rudy was. Yeah, how'd you feel about that? No, it sucked. And I'm going to tell you, my name is in the credits for that movie. Yeah, you're right about that. I remember that. Yeah, but it's not the truth because Rudy gave black people I mean, in all of Rudy's movies, there were black people producing, directing, writing, actors. All of them were black people doing those important jobs, those upfront jobs. In the movie, Dolomite is my name, I guess. I think that's the name of it. The director was white. The producers were white. The cinematographer was white. Writers were white. It's like, wait a minute. How could that possibly be? You're right. You have to understand, Rudy gave more people opportunities than we get in today's day and age almost. So I will forever be grateful to Rudy Ray Moore for starting me off and giving me my first job. Although it was Cliff Rockmore who actually gave me the job because Cliff was the director who's a brilliant director. And I worked at a theater called the Inner City Cultural Center, which is no longer in existence, really. They're trying to keep it alive, but the physical building is no longer there. But there were like four theaters in that building. Black folks, I mean, you name it. I'm talking about everybody came to that theater, whether you're talking about Lou Gossett, whether you're talking about Denzel, you name them. They all, at one point, came to that theater and worked. And I met all these people. But Cliff was a brilliant director. And I had done a couple of plays with Cliff. And Cliff was producing. Cliff actually wrote Petey Wheatstraw. And I think he, I'm not sure if he directed Petey Wheatstraw, but I know he wrote it. But he produced a lot of Rudy's stuff. And he produced Disco Godfather. And he gave me the role of Stingray, which was the lead bad guy in that movie. So, It's thanks to Cliff, who was passed on many years ago. But, I mean, Cliff was just brilliant. So you know I'm going to watch that tonight, right? You know I got to go back and watch that. I got to go back and watch that one. Yeah, but, you know, I just want to tell people, you know, you think that Big Red came out of nowhere and that's just who I am. No. That came from a lot of work. A lot of theater, a lot of, you know, just basic going to school, you know, and learning the craft. Because a quick story about that particular is you don't understand Big Red, that role is Shakespeare. Because I've been doing Shakespeare since I was in high school.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And when I went to London, when Teddy got me to go to London, I fell in love with a play called Richard III. And in Richard III, Richard became king because he killed his, I think it was his cousin. I don't think it was his brother. I can't remember right off now. But he killed his cousin. And Richard is a hunchback crippled guy. And at the funeral, he woos his cousin's wife, the queen, over the casket. And he actually wins it. She becomes his queen. So it's one of the most fascinating plays you could ever read and perform. So it stayed in the back of my mind. Cut to four or five years later, because I went to school in London in 1989, I think it was. And Heartbeat came out in 91. So it wasn't that long afterwards. But I loved that play. So the backstory for me because I always have a backstory. I always build a character, you know, one piece at a time. I looked at it as though I'm so angry with Jimmy because Eleanor was mine at first and he stole her from me. So that's what makes me so angry with him all the time. Yeah, we were friends, but he stole my woman. So originally I wasn't in the funeral scene. And during rehearsal, I went to Robert and I said, Robert, I need to be in the funeral scene, I think. He said, yeah, you do. Well, he didn't write anything. He was so busy doing other things. He never wrote anything for me in the funeral scene. So we shot the night before I sat down and I wrote what I thought should be the funeral scene. And that morning we shot the scene where Jimmy comes to my house and Eddie's at the house. Well, on the way back, we were shooting a funeral scene and there was nothing for me to do. So I had this piece of paper that I wrote the night before and I was sitting in the front seat of the car. Robert was sitting right behind me and the producer was sitting right behind the driver and I didn't know Robert that well. And finally, I said, to hell with it. Robert, I think I need to say this at the funeral scene. And I handed him this piece of paper behind, you know, and he read it. He said, yeah, that's good. And all he did was, of course, I had written a lot more. So he just edited it out. I wrote that funeral scene. Wow. And that's direct from Shakespeare. That's crazy. So I always tell kids, you have to do your homework. You can't just be a movie star. You can't just be a scientist. I mean, how would you like it? is if some guy came up to you and said, I'm a doctor and I need to operate on your brain with no training. I mean, it's the same for every profession. I can't be an accountant without putting in the work. I can't be a garbage man without going to school for, you know, learning how to drive the truck. You know, it's the same thing with this industry. You have to put in that work. Especially for longevity. There are people who, how many people do you know that were hot for five minutes and now you never hear of them again? Oh, there's a lot. There's a lot of them. Because they've never put in the work. As a 20-year-old, you can play a 20-year-old. But what happens when you become 40, 50? It's about the longevity for me. And I've been doing this for a long time. I've been making my living since 1986. My last nine to five job was in 1986. And on top of everything else, I know this industry backwards and forwards. My last nine to five job, I was one of the highest black executives in Hollywood. I was at TriStar Pictures. I was head of the post-production market. So I'm, There's nothing in this industry I haven't done. Nobody else has done this. Sam Jackson, nobody else. I've been a writer, producer, director, actor, and I was in the ivory tower. So I know how these folks, these Hollywood people think. And that's what has allowed me to be stubborn enough to say, to hell with you people. You can't get rid of me. I'm going to stay here because my ancestors, So that I could be who I am. And if I quit, if I give in to these jackasses, then they win. And I'll be damned if they win. Yes. Paris loved that. You loved that, right, Paris? Yes, yes. And on top of that, you know, as far as I'm concerned, this is just me personally. I have an obligation to those who come behind me. I have a lot of information. And if you want that information and you're serious about that information, I'm willingly giving it to you. Because somebody gave me the information. I had teachers who gave me, who taught me. So I want to pass it along, pass it. You know, it's the same thing. So I'm glad, you know, it's very, my rant right now is actually, It's sometimes, you know, it's like I stopped doing interviews. And for some reason I decided, yeah, I'm going to do this one. All right. And we thank you for that. No, it's just something about it. I said, okay, I'm going to do this one. Because it gets tiring. Because after a while, it's like spitting into the wind. What good am I doing if I keep saying the same thing over and over and over? And you don't see the benefits of it. You don't see people learning from it. You know, I've turned down millions of dollars because I don't do everything. No, you know, if it doesn't reflect me and my daddy and my grandparents, my granddaddies as black men, uh-uh. This is my line. This is my line. I don't use the N-word and I don't put on a dress. Yeah, I agree on the dress one. I ain't going to do that one. Yeah, you know, and I don't preach about it. That's just my line. But I'm asking you to have your own line. At least have a line that you won't cross. And I say the N-word because that's a whole different story. I'm going to get into that. But I stopped using it in my 20s when I was at Notre Dame. So I... Like I said, that's just my line. I don't preach about it. I don't tell you what you should be doing, what you should be saying. I'm just saying I have a line. And because of that line, I have lost a lot of money. When I say millions of dollars, I mean millions of dollars. Oh, wow. Because I can't do certain things. I had a script that I wrote back in the 90s. And it's about two black women And their relationship, they were sisters. And they grew up together. They were very close. And then in their adult years, they grew apart. And they get stuck in a cabin, one with her husband, a cabin that they had in the family since they were children. And they get stuck there. And they have to deal with each other for the first time in 20 years. One goes up there to kill herself. And the other goes up, takes her husband up there to get him away. He's a doctor that gets her away from, get him away from the hospital so that they can deal with their relationship. And it's called Remember Me. Remember Me with a question mark. And so I put it on YouTube so you can see it on the short film. I did a short film because I was going to get the short film so I could try and raise the money to do the whole thing. But the short film is called Remember Me with a question mark. If you go to YouTube under my name, Hawthorne James, you can see two films I've got up there. Remember Me and Lisa Trotter. Lisa Trotter is a whole different thing. Sam Greenlee, who wrote The Spook, who sat by the door. I won't go into all of that. But anyway, somebody said, well, you know, this needs to be a screenplay. Remember Me. So I sat down and I wrote the screenplay. I actually had like 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers were going to buy it for almost a million dollars. It was 999 some thousand dollars back in 90. Oh, wow. I was excited like crazy, of course. And I needed that money. I need that money today. But they came back to me and both of them said, look, well, can the women be white? To get my damn screenplay back. Because they couldn't believe that black women could be upwardly mobile, ambitious, middle class. They wouldn't have it. But all of my friends said, oh man, you must be crazy. I'd have sold them to them people. I don't care. I'm not selling my soul. If you sell it one time, how easy is it to sell a second and the third and the fourth time? No. If we're lucky, we get 80 years on this planet. If we're lucky, in a blink of an eye, and you're going to sell your soul for that blink of an eye, and I made my decision a long time ago, I don't sell my soul for anybody. You can't buy me. I'm not for sale. My ancestors were sold. I'm not. being bought. Chase my black behind. Yes, sir. I am with you 100%. 100%. So with that being said, is acting really a dirty job? No, it's not a dirty job. Let me ask you a question. What do you mean by dirty job? What do you mean by that? Let me clarify that first. Well, when I say a dirty job, is it to what you're referencing as far as the people in the industry? Is the industry dirty? Are the people dirty? Is getting into that field, is it a dirty job? oh, there's some nasty, nasty, filthy people in this business. Look at them. You know who they are. The ones on top? Is it the ones on top or is it people we don't even get to see? Oh, just about all of them because they corrupt from the top. Yeah. Because you learn. Okay. They teach you very subtly. When I was at TriStar, I would read scripts because it was my job. But they didn't understand what I said. They didn't understand because I was in post-production. Everything, and I mean everything, came across my desk. All the budgets, all the scripts. We had to read all the scripts in order to understand how we proceed in post-production, et cetera, et cetera. Everything came across my desk. There were scripts. Let me give you specifics. There was a script called Let's Get Hairy because what was happening was they were paying black people scale. Young white boys with that first movie, they were paying a quarter of a million dollars to. A black person with the same role, same type of role, with more experience than the young white boy, they were getting scale, which is, I don't know what it was back then,$1,200 a week, but that white boy was getting paid.$250,000 to do a movie, his first movie.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So, I saw all of this. It all came across my desk because I was seeing everybody's palette. They didn't understand this. And, and so finally, there was a role in a movie called Let's Get Hairy. And I had read the script and there's a black guy. What happened was some white guy got kidnapped in Mexico and, and And the U.S. government wouldn't do anything. So his brother, who was a plumber in Indiana, got together with his friends and said, we got to go get my brother. We got to go get my brother out of Mexico. So his friends decided, yeah, let's go get him. That's why it's called Let's Get Harry. They hired some, what do you call those people, mercenaries to help them get the guns, et cetera, et cetera, and teach them how to do this. So there was a role for a black guy. And when I got the budget for the script, for the production, this black guy, this role for this black guy, it was a quarter of a million dollars. I was jumping up and down, finally a brother getting paid. Finally a brother getting paid. But the name, I said, who is this guy? For a week I kept saying, I know that name. I know that name. I know that name. Who is he? So finally, I went to the vice president of production, his secretary. Her office is right next to where I was working. And I said, who is this guy? And she said, oh, you know him. That's Glenn Frey. He's the lead singer of the Eagles. What they had done, as they always did, they took any black role that the writers had written and turned them into white.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So what happens is the writers learn that why am I jeopardizing my writing, my money for some black people? They learn not to even bother to write black roles. That's how they do it constantly over and over and over. It's very subtle. But we as people have to learn how that subtlety works. It's that constant brainwashing that we're and not even knowing, unless you're conscious of it, you just get brainwashed every day of your life. So the writers, the white writers say, I'm not jeopardizing my career. They learn. They just stop writing black roles. And that happened at Tricept. That was just only at one film production company. That happened over and over. I'm telling you, every time there's a black role, By the time they produced that movie, that black role was gone and it was somebody white. So I learned these things. I learned how they do business. Therefore, my frustration as an actor is so much less than most people because once I leave the audition room, I take the hell with it. I'm done. I've done what I'm supposed to do. So I learned. I was fortunate enough to be in certain positions that nobody else has been in. Do you think that's changed now or do you think it's still the same? No, hell no. Same thing, right? Do you think it would add up? All this nonsense about your things are getting better. Get out of here. No, it's not. I don't see any bitter at all. Is there a black person who heads a major studio? No. No, he does not. I said a major studio. There you go. There you go. And what he does, And God bless him. I'm glad he's making his money. But that buffoonery is what white people like to see. It definitely is buffoonery. It's buffoonery. It is. It is. You know, and they let him do it. As long as he doesn't step out, as long as he's doing that bidding, which is keeping black folks stupid, then he's fine. But let him try and do something that really teaches us how to fight. Let him start teaching historically. And I'm not just talking about, what's her name? What's the woman's name? The Underground Railroad woman. Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman. I'm not talking about, there are thousands of Harriet Tubman that we could be talking about. That's what they said. Yeah, you're right. She's not the only one. Yeah. We should be telling those stories every day of our lives so our children can grow up and say, not be ashamed of who they are. Yeah. I agree. Of being able to hold their heads up high and say, we are. Those are the stories we should be telling, but we're not allowed to do that. Just like the story I told you about the two sisters. I don't care about I could have made a lot of money. If I decided to write stories about black kids killing black kids, I could have made a lot of money. I'm not doing that because that's not where I came from. Yeah, you're right. My grandfathers and my daddy were the greatest men I ever knew. They took care of their family and they never bowed down to anybody. Now, I've been trying to put their lives on screen all my life. I'm still trying. Till the day I die, I'm going to still try and put their lives up. And what I mean by not put their personal lives on screen, but to portray characters that reflect who I am as a black man. Tell that story. Tell that story. And I am, you know, people always say, is there something that you don't like you've ever done? No. You can go back from Disco Godfather. Everything I've ever done, you can watch. And I'm proud of everything I've ever put my finger on. And because of the fact that I did the best that I could do at that point in my life, and I'm proud of it. Now, would I go back and change things? Hell, I would change things in the five heartbeats. I'm not going to ask you what that is until I bring you back to the five heartbeats. Yeah, just little things. Just little things. Just little bitty nuances and stuff. No big deal. But, you know, But you grow as a human being. You say, oh man, why didn't I do that? Yeah. And every film that I've ever done, I can say, damn, I wish I'd done it back then. But that's you as an artist growing. Yeah. If you're not growing, then what good are you? True. You're right. Indeed. So with that, is there any role that you feel like you should have had that was given to someone else? Oh, there were a couple of things. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday. I can't remember. Not yesterday. I was talking to him today, as a matter of fact. I was telling him a story about our audition for a movie. And the producers were sitting there and they were saying, oh, this is great. Oh, man, you're terrific. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get the job. I saw the movie later on. And everything that I'd done in an audition, the guy they hired tried to do it. He couldn't do it. Wow. Who was the guy? I don't remember. I mean, even if I did remember, I wouldn't call him out. But he was unable to do what I could do. I tried. But all the things that I was doing in the audition, that's what they decided to do. But their politics are, well, this guy is hot, but I had auditioned for another film once and I didn't get it. And I was somewhere, I don't remember if I was in an audition or if I was actually working on something, but I was smoking. I used to smoke. I quit smoking five years ago, finally. But I was standing outside smoking and the producers of that film walked by and they came up to me and they said, man, these couple white guys, And they said, we should have hired you. Now, how am I supposed to take that? I'm supposed to feel good about that? The other guy got the job going on about the money. He had given them problems, couldn't do what I could do. Now they're regretting they didn't hire me. Oh, man. You know, it's like, get the fuck out of my face. That's what I want to hear. You know what? I want to bring it back. I want to go back a little bit. Where are you from? Let the people know where you're from, where you grew up at. Born and raised in Chicago. I'm a Southside baby. Chi-town. How often do you go back to Chi-town? Probably not at all anymore. The only person that's left in Chicago of my siblings is my sister. She's never left. Everybody else is scattered all around from North Carolina to to St. Louis, to Michigan, Indiana. So I really don't go back. There's nothing for me. And generally, I don't go anywhere without being paid anyway nowadays. People say, when you come to North Carolina? As soon as somebody pays me. There you go. Because other than that, I got my girl here, and I got the house, and I'm very content. Just sitting in the house or sitting outside by the pool. I'm very happy. I don't have to do anything. And when I say by the pool, we bought this house. She and I bought this house about two years ago now. The first house I've ever owned. Because I'm a working actor. My name is not Sam Jackson. My name is not any of these Being that, you know, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, I don't make that kind of money. I'm able to keep my head above water. And finally, I was able to pull together some money to buy a house. And I'm very happy with the fact that it took me all these years to do it. But I'm here. That's good. And I'm happy. And I'm here with my girl. So I don't have to do anything. I love to work, though. Don't get it twisted. I love to work, but I only do, I turn down a film. Well, okay, let me tell you this. Uh-oh, uh-oh. Let me sit up. I'm sitting up. Yeah, we sitting up. Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, I did a play in L.A., a reading, a staged reading of a play. And it's a really good play. But it's about the 1700s black guy who helped fund the Revolutionary War. Wow. So the playwright, this woman, you know, she said, well, I've got some scripts, I've got some film stuff that I want to do. I would love for you to be a part of it one day. Well, cut to chase. About six or seven months ago, she called me up and she said, it wasn't even that long ago, four or five months ago, she called and said, I've got the funding to do my movie. And it's a little comedy. It's like a Christmas comedy type thing, wedding. And I read it, and it was fun. She said, I got two roles that I want you to consider. One was a small role, and the other was the role of the father of the woman who's getting married. So I read it, and I said, oh, I want to do the dad. Well, in the script, what happens is they watch football on Sundays, NFL on Sundays. And I haven't watched the NFL in four years, ever since... Kaepernick got no job. I said, the hell with those people. I don't support the NFL. Kaepernick got no job. I'm not watching. So I haven't watched the NFL in four years. So in the script, she called me up. She said, what do you think? And I said, well, I think the family, I don't mind, you know, because there are people I know that watch football. And I'm like, once again, I don't preach about it. I just tell you how I feel about it and what I don't do. And I said, I need to, I think I need the character to say, I'm not watching it. I support Colin Kaepernick and keep it moving. That's all I said. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. Nothing like that. I just walked through the door and looked at everybody watching the NFL. They come watch the game. No, you know how I feel about that. You know, I support Colin and keep it moving. That's all. Well, Two months later, she called me and she said, well, we got a director and the producers, they're not feeling that Colin Kaepernick. Oh, man. So she said, well, what they want to do, they want to offer you the other small role. But I've built, I've made it bigger. I said, okay, let me see the script. And I read the script. Well, what's the guy's name that did the Die Hard movies? Bruce Willis?
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Bruce Willis. I watched the movie that Bruce Willis did. I forget. She called me the next day or something. But I watched this movie, Bruce Willis. Well, what happens was in this movie, Bruce Willis' sons are in an apartment. The cops come in, raid the apartment, kill one son, and realize that they had the wrong apartment. And they framed the other son and sent him to jail. because they misread the address. Well, Bruce Willis comes in. He comes in and takes a, and I can't remember the name of the movie, but he takes a dam, the dam hostage. He's going to flood the town below. He kills a lot of the workers at the dam. He takes a school bus of children hostage. He gets the two cops that killed his son and framed his son. He gets them to come to the dam. He kills them. So this is a white man who can do this. Yeah, you're right. But in a movie, but when you say, when a black man says, I support Colin Kaepernick, oh, hell no. All hell breaks loose. You're right. I don't mean to laugh, but you're right. No. So she called me, she asked me, she said, well, would you do the movie? I said, I'm passing.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Because number one, I know I would be miserable knowing that I should be doing the other role. Number two, my conscience to be around those type of people, whether producers were white or black, I would hate all of them. I couldn't be around them because they don't give a damn about black men. So, no, I have passed. I lost money. And I need that money. But my conscience, we have to stop doing things that in the long run don't benefit us as a people. We'll find a way to make this living. We'll find a way. Because 400 years ago, people found a way to make it. We will find a way. We don't have to sell our souls to nobody. And I'm not, and you know, I mean, it's up to the individual. I'm not saying how you should live your life. But at least have a little bit of confidence. At least be able to say no. Every once in a while. And I know you got to make money. But you don't have to suck. The nipple of everybody that comes along. You sensitive yourself. I was waiting for it. It was coming. It was coming out. You're right about that. You're right about that. Well, I'm going to try to get you in a brighter note. Yeah. Let's say. All right. So you're known for Big Red, right? Everybody loves Big Red. Yeah. Tell us your favorite role. Because I almost guarantee it's not Big Red. It's something else that was one of your favorite roles. You know what? Everything I've ever done, I love. For different reasons. It's like naming your favorite child. That ain't gonna happen. But one of my favorites that people may not know is a film I did with Alec Baldwin. called Heaven's Prisoners. And I did a character called Victor Romero. Unfortunately, and this is, here we go with another one of these stories. It was fun to do it. The bad guy, I mean, oh man. When I went to audition, There was a line. I killed Alec Baldwin's wife. I shot down her in the bed, in her bed, because I'm looking for him. He just happens not to be there at that moment, so I killed his wife. And so we have this big shootout. I own a laundry in New Orleans. And we shooted each other from the front door to the third floor. I mean, we blasted. They shot all kinds from the first floor. floor, second floor, third floor. We were, we were shooting water, water coolers, everything. It was so much fun. But they talked about me in the movie. They talk about, don't mess with Victor. Don't mess with Victor. Like the whole movie. That's all they say. So once he shoots me, he, he doesn't know who's doing what. So he leans down to me and he says, who did it? And I look up and I whisper to him. I said, it's your old lady. And he didn't understand it. He leans down closer. He said, who did it? And I look at him. I said, it's your old lady. And I died. To me, it was one of the greatest exit lines ever. That's straight to hell. It was a great exit line for me. So I had to do some ADR or looping. They call it either looping or ADR, automatic dialer, which we do. Sometimes they have to, in post-production, they have to, you know, a line gets maybe messed up or they want to add a line. That's what they call ADR. So I went to do the ADR. And the director came up to me. He said, look here, don't be upset. Please don't be upset. But we had to cut a lot of your stuff out. And I said, why? And he wouldn't tell me at first. I said, come on, tell me. What is, what's going on? Why did you? Finally, after five minutes of me asking him, what the hell happened? He said to me, we had to cut you because you made Alec look like a punk. So they basically let you go because... Oh, my God. Yeah. Because the black man is bigger than the white man. Oh, yeah. Don't say it out loud. Don't say it out loud. I'm telling the truth. Say it out loud. Say it out loud. I'll say it again. It was because the black man was outshining the white man. Oh, we're going to get canceled. And that's exactly what. So they couldn't have that. So they had to cut my stuff. I mean, the stuff that we shot when we were shooting at each other in the laundromat and the laundry, all that stuff is gone. So we go from the front room to the third floor in about 30 seconds where he shoots me. They cut the line. Wow. That's the line that I die on because, and this is what he told me. He said, he said, Alec didn't respond to that. So we had to cut you. Now Alec had 10 movies to do, had 10 movies lined up to do after this one. I'm counting on this one to take me to a different level. It didn't do it because of the fact that they cut all my stuff out. They cut you off at the knees as they say. Yeah. Dang. I had one of the actresses who was a big time, I'm not going to say her name, I'm going to save it for the book.
UNKNOWN:Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00:But this was amazing to me. My brother, one of my brothers came to LA and I was receiving an award for Remember Me in Oakland. So I had flown to Oakland to get the award and my brother went with me. Well, I had booked this ticket and they wanted me to come back the following day and shoot and do some reshoots for Heaven's Prisoners because they wanted to add a scene with me and one of the lead women. So there were no flights after 10 o'clock out of Oakland. They hired a private jet to fly me back to LA. Oh, they're trying to make up.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but my brother got to fly on this jet with me. So that was the biggest thrill because my brother got to go with me on a private jet. Yeah. So they flew me back to L.A. so I could be on the set at 6 o'clock in the morning. And the lead woman was constantly flubbing her lines. It was just the same between me and her. She was messing up and messing up and messing up. So they shot all her stuff first. And one of the crew members came to me. This is a white guy. And he came up to me and he said, this is what he told her or told him. Or he was listening and she told somebody and he overheard it. But he came back to me and she said, she was messing up so bad because she was so nervous because you're so good. Needless to say, that scene is not in the movie. Get out of here. Because she messed up her lines. She was messing up her stuff off of you. They deleted you because of her. Yeah. If that ain't black ball, what is that? You know, it's just, it's just one of those things that, that they don't understand how good black people can be. And they get very, you know, in this case, it was me. And she was so nervous because of the fact that she thought I was so good. She couldn't handle it. And this is a big time actress. You know what? I'm going to tell the guests. I had the privilege of working with you on set on The Polished Souls. And we were inside prison, you know, going over the lines and stuff like that. So everybody's doing their own thing. So when it finally came to your scene, You know, everybody's watching. Oh, oh, let's watch. Watch. You said your lines, everybody's jaw dropped and everybody clapped after. It was like a standing ovation and we was already standing. I'm telling you, that's how good of an actor this man is. Well, I appreciate you saying that. But at the same time, I'm also glad you brought up Polished Soul because because what's his name? Anthony, Mark, Mike. Mike. Mike Anderson. Mike Anderson. Mike Anderson. Well, give me Mike for that. Me too. Me too, Mike. Your name was right there. But it's, those are the things that I care about. Those are the things I want to do. And I didn't make any money down there. You know, that, I mean, it's not about the money. Yeah, I need the money. Of course, I need the money. But at the same time, Mike called me up. He said, and I met Mike several years before and he was going through the process of writing the book and et cetera, et cetera. And he said, I'm going to try and raise the money to do the movie, et cetera. And I said, yeah, cool. Just let me know, Mike. Because it's like, this is a brother who spent 17 and a half years in prison. And I always talk about We should be helping each other. And if I would turn around and say, Mike, oh man, ain't no money in it for me, then what good am I? I would just be another one of these worthless people that just opens their mouth and just talks. Instead of saying, Mike, what do you need? How can we make this work? I can't do it for free, but I know you can't pay me what I'm worth. And I was able to, I said, okay, Mike, we're going to get this done. And it was an absolutely, totally fulfilling time in my life to work with you guys. Yes. Because it meant something to me. Shout out to Mike. Mike Anderson. If anybody's around looking for a director or want to be in a film with him, Mike Anderson. You might find him in Fayetteville. You might find him in California. Who knows where he's going to be? Yep, exactly. But he's got a son. And he's doing the right thing. This is a man who spent 17 and a half years in prison. And he came out and is doing what he should have been doing in the first place. But he was not allowed to understand he should be doing this before he went to prison. Yeah, you're right. You're right about that. Because we're not allowed to see what we can do. It goes right back to what I said. Harriet Tubman is only one of 10,000 people who were doing what she was doing. But we're not allowed to see that. Of course not. And if you're not allowed to see it, then how can you want to be it? And I'm blessed in the fact that my upbringing, my parents were, my parents were together. My daddy died. I don't know how much time we have. No, we got all the time in the world. As much as you need. All the time. Shoot, I'll ask you everything, anything I can think of. I just don't want to hold you up. No, it's like I go back to my grandparents went to college. My parents went to college. My older brothers and sisters were college. But my grandfather went to Hampton, got a degree in music, wound up being a Pullman porter. And then in Chicago, he built Pullman Card. My grandmother went to college to become a teacher. She couldn't get a teaching job. She wound up being a housekeeper at a hospital. My mother got a degree in biology. Couldn't get a job teaching. She wound up working for the government. My daddy had a degree in chemistry and math. My daddy was an All-American in football and baseball at an HBCU when those HBCUs were, not when they diluted like they are now, but when all the black athletes were at HBCUs. My daddy was an All-American in football and baseball and wound up being a cab driver. But they never allowed their, what must have been their frustration and anger trickled out of their children because they told us we could be whatever we wanted to be. See, I didn't know all of this until I was an adult. My daddy, as a chemistry person, sent his resume to Schlitz Brewery in Milwaukee. They said, come up here right away. We need you right now. You're hired. We need you. We need you, Mr. Chemistry Man. Just based on his resume. They He got up to Milwaukee and I used to drink beer. I didn't find out any of this until, like I said, as an adult because they didn't tell us all this stuff because they didn't want us to feel like we couldn't. He got to Milwaukee. They looked at him. They looked at his resume and said, oh, no, you can't be this guy in this resume. They gave him bus fare back to Chicago. Oh, wow. They would not hire this black man to be a chemist. I should have grown up as a middle-class kid instead of a kid who was eating beans every day, who they couldn't afford to do anything for. I stopped drinking Schlitz beer once. I didn't find that out until after I was an adult. My brother lived with my mother until she passed, so he got all those stories from her. I used to... I went to Holy Cross Junior College, which is in South Bend, Indiana, before I went to Notre Dame. I transferred from Holy Cross, and that's a story unto itself. But my mother, we lived in Michigan. We moved out of Chicago my last two years of high school, moved to Michigan. And my mother lived, my parents moved us to 30 miles north of South Bend, Indiana, where Notre Dame was, and Holy Cross. So I would drive down every day with my mother. I would drive her to work. You know, she'd drop her off at work and I would go back for my classes at Holy Cross. And so I did that every day. My mother drove 30 miles round trip every day to work by herself, except for at least two years. And that was only during school time. So that's in snow and everything, but Anyway, we would drive back and forth together. And it was an amazing experience being in the car with my mother. I started to say this for a reason. I've lost what the point was. No. You're good. We're still listening. We're still listening. So I got to, I transferred to Notre Dame, which was the most racist place I've ever been in my life. I hated it. And like I say, there are stories about that place. Because there was only like eight black students on academic scholarship at Notre Dame at the time. And I think like three lived off campus. So there was only five of us on academic scholarship that lived on campus. And there was only a handful of athletes. If you didn't start at Notre Dame, you wasn't sitting on no bench. They didn't bring your ass in to sit on a bench. So the benches were reserved for the white boy. What year was this? This was early 70s. But it was rough for me because there was so much crap that happened. And then even afterwards, those are whole different things. But my parents were so... That's why I said my daddy and my grandparents and my granddaddy were the greatest men that I've ever known. My grandmother, and I fail to mention sometimes, my grandmother was a housekeeper at Michael Reese Hospital. But what I'm so proud of her is she retired as the head housekeeper. So no matter what she did, they taught us to do the best that you can do to be the best. Even though she was a housekeeper, she wound up being the head housekeeper. You don't understand how proud of that that makes me. Because segueing back into my own job, which first job I had when I was 16 years old in Chicago, I was frying chicken for the colonel. Getting on that bus going out to wherever it was, 70s, 80s, I think, because we lived on 37th, going out to the 70s and 80s. But what I'm very proud of, and I tell people all the time, that whole summer I worked for the colonel, I never burned a pot of chicken. And that means a lot to me because of the fact that, and everybody else there that was working there burned a pot of chicken. That whole summer, I never burned a pot of chicken. And what that means to me is, once I give you my word, I'm going to do the best job I can. I don't care what it is. There are films that, like Mike's film, Mike would have been paying me a billion dollars and he wouldn't have got a different performance out of me. Because once I give you my word, you're going to get everything, my whole heart and soul into that. I don't care. Another thing that I say to people all the time is if I give Steven Spielberg respect, and I've done two films with Spielberg, one of the only actors in the world who's been in two different Steven Spielberg movie. If I give him that respect, then Robert Townsend, Keenan Ivory Wayne, is going to get more respect. I'm going to bend over backwards to give that black man the respect because I have to do my own people until you prove to me that you don't deserve it. Yes. When you prove to me you don't deserve it, then we got problems. But as long as you deserve it, I will bend over backwards to make sure you understand that I respect you and I will do and work with you at any time. That's what we have to learn about dealing with each other. We have to start doing that. I agree. Well, I'm about to spice it up a little bit. I'm sure people want to know, is there any actresses out there that you've ever dated? Uh-oh. Uh-huh. He got quiet. He smiled, too. I know it. He smiled. I'm going to say, yeah, there's a couple actresses, but I dated a woman. I live with a woman. We were together for over 20 years, and I helped raise her two daughters. The greatest actress ever. Meryl Streep. Ain't got nothing on this woman. But she's not, she's not, she's not, you wouldn't know her because she did a lot of theater. And she turned down Hollywood all the time because she wasn't selling her soul either. So, but this is the greatest actress I've ever been around. But yeah, I dated one or two actresses. I dated a producer who was making a boatload of money and another big time actress ruined that. that relationship well who's the one that made the boat one of the biggest black actresses out there ever ruined the relationship so yeah you know all this stuff I'll talk about that in the book I was trying to get you to go ahead and drop you know give us a little snippet now you know you got a little snippet you got you got a little snippet I'm not going to mention Halle Berry's name but oh yeah y'all was what movie y'all in together It wasn't in the movie. Okay, all right. No, no, I've never been in, but I was dating a woman who was supposed to be her best friend and she ruined that relationship. So I can't stand her. Okay, now you got your snippet, okay? You got your snippet, now leave me alone. He gave us a little bit of tea, a little tea, tea. But I have to, you know, you said a while ago, something positive, you said, you know, you want to do something. I have to tell you, I'm one of the most blessed men in the world. And you can't take that away from me because I'm a kid from the south side of Chicago who didn't have enough to eat, who ate beans like all the rest of my friends. And I'm living my dream. I'm getting to do what I want to do for a living. So even though I don't have the money that other people have, and even though I should have that money that other people have, I still look at myself as very blessed. Sometimes I look at, you know, I say I haven't done, because I haven't done what, you know, the things that I really want to do. I haven't been able to make that influence that I want to make. You know, I've been trying to raise money to do movies, you know, but I won't do negative movies. So, but I'm still, you have to understand, I'm still blessed. How many people would love to have gone to Notre Dame? How many people would love to have gone to the University of Michigan? How many people would have loved to go to London? Sometimes I have to look at my resume and say, even though I feel like I haven't done anything, I have to look at my resume and say, people would give their eye to do what I've done. And I have to put it in perspective. But that doesn't mean that I have to be satisfied. True. True indeed. You keep on pushing. Keep on doing more. I keep pushing because there's so much more. Because these kids are killing each other in Chicago. Because they don't know any better. Because they haven't seen. Every time they turn the TV on, every time they read a book, every time they go to the classroom, they're being told how worthless they are. Every day of their lives, they're being propagandized and told, you aren't worth a damn. And I have to change that. It's my personal mission. And I hope other people join me. We don't get to see the guys who are lining the streets, those black men who are lining the streets in Chicago to make sure that those black kids get to school safe. You don't see that, do you? No, you don't. Not at all. No. You don't see the guys in Detroit who are patrolling the streets. We don't see those stories because that's not who the majority of people up top want you to see. That's what we have to change. We have to tell our own stories in our own way. And we have to tell the truth about ourselves and not be afraid. There are too many people who get the money to do a movie who are afraid. What is Massa going to think about this? Oh, we can't say that. Going back to that Colin Kaepernick. Oh, we can't say that. Oh, my money. Oh, my money. I need my money. Chicken powers. You're cowards. Yes. And I cannot be around you. Exactly. I'm not asking you to cut your throat, but I'm asking you to stand up and be a man. And with that, you know, okay. I agree. No, you're right. I'm just sitting here like, yes, like I'm in church in the front row. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We're not going to hold you too much longer. I'm going to ask you a couple more things and then we're going to let you go. Okay. All right. All right. I'm, I'm going to get back to, uh, where we, we, we, I'm a, I'm a rewind back to five heartbeats. I got two things I want to ask you about the five heartbeats. How was it working with Robert Townsend and Kenan Ivory Wayans? Okay. That's two different, two different things. So I had to work with Kenan on the five heartbeat. He wasn't a writer. He was a writer. No. Okay.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Have you ever seen, I guess you haven't seen it, but did you ever, there's a documentary Robert did called Making the Five Heartbeat. You have to see that. You have to see that documentary. Okay. It's about everything that went into getting that movie done. Oh, okay. And it's fascinating. It's called Making the Five Heartbeat and it's available. You can pull it up online. You can get it. It was wonderful working with Robert at that time because like I say, Robert was letting me do my work. He was so free with us letting actors do things. Like I said, I wrote the funeral scene. There's a line right when the first time you see Big Red and he goes over to the boards. And it's that line where he says, oh, I'm just an old country boy. And he's trying to sell himself to the boys, right? Well, all of a sudden, Jimmy and Eleanor come up to the table. You see them handing, you know, he takes the cards and I'm handing to the boys. And they get introduced, yeah. So he just says, I'm just an old country boy. Well, all of a sudden, he looks at Eleanor and he starts speaking in French. Well, if he's just, if he's saying to the boys, I'm just an old country boy. Next thing you know, he's speaking French. You know, he just ain't no old country boy. Well, the country hustler or not, he's just, this is an intelligent, educated man. Yes. Just from that one line. And it also, what it does is it negates that old country boy stuff. Then it tells you that he has a relationship with Eleanor because she understands what he's saying, and it cuts her husband out of the conversation because he doesn't understand French. So you see, that one line says a lot, and this is what I did. Well, the line was originally, of course, Robbie wrote it in English. Eleanor, you are as beautiful as always, as you ever were, whatever, I forget the direct name. But I decided I wanted to say that line in French because of the reasons that I just told you. Negate the country boy, makes a relationship with her, cuts her husband out of the thing. Robert and I went back and forth. He said, nah, man, I don't think that's going to work. I said, come on, Robert, let me have this. We went back and forth. They finally said, hell with it. Go ahead and say it. Well, I mean, there are other things that I wanted to do, and he was absolutely correct. I mean, because when I come, I come with the kitchen sink, and you got to cut that. You know, you got to cut down the hot water sometimes, you know, because that's just me. But he let me have that. About two months after the movie came out, he called me and said, you know, you were absolutely right about that line. So, yeah, I enjoyed working with Robert right then. Because the fact that, like I say, I mean, the funeral scene, there are other things in a movie like that. And if you see Making the Five Heartbeats, you'll see all kinds of other stuff. I'm going to check it out. But it was fun. It was fun working with Robert. I had a blast. I was making a few bucks and doing what I love to do. I had no clue that movie was going to be 30 years later. We're still talking about that movie. Yeah, I was going to ask you if you knew it was a hit when you did it. No, absolutely. Anybody tells you that that's a hit is an idiot. They're lying. Don't know. Let me say cult classic. Yeah. You do your work, you do your work and throw it out to the public and then the public says yes or no. Yeah. That's all you can do. I'm sorry. Do you remember the reviews when it first came out? Was it, did people welcome it? They weren't good. Yeah. No, they weren't good. But I remember going to, I was in a movie theater and I was going to see a movie and the Firefly Beach trailer came on. And because I had been that executive, I had watched trailers and all that stuff, you know, because I was responsible for some of the trailers, et cetera. And I watched that trailer and I said to myself, if I didn't know what this movie was really about, would I go see this movie? And I had to say, no. It was one of the worst trailers that you ever want to see. You thought it, you would have thought that it was about a bunch of singing and dancing Negro happy faces and stuff. That's not what that movie was about. Yeah, you're right.
UNKNOWN:You're right.
SPEAKER_00:But the trailer, because white folks didn't know what to do. See, once again, here we go with that. What happened was, Kenan wrote it. And once you see Make Any Five Hours, you understand all this stuff. But the original five heartbeats were Kenan, Damon wasn't a heartbeat. It was Kenan, it was Robert, David Allen Greer, Denzel, and I forget who the fifth one was. Wow. Those were the original five heartbeats when Kenan was involved in the movie. Wow. And because it took so long, Kenan got in Living Color and he turned the project over to Robert. He said, it's yours from now on. Can you imagine for a what movie that would have been with those guys, as opposed to the guys you wound up with. It had been that movie that you thought it was going to be when you saw the trailer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a comedy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'd been, it'd been a whole different animal. And once Robert got hold of it, he went out on the road with the Dells and he got a lot of stories and he came back and rewrote it and it became different. It became a drama as opposed to a comedy. Yeah. So, so, But please go watch Making the Five Horses because the stories are there. Yeah. And it's such a different thing. I mean, Vanessa Williams was at one point, she was in rehearsals with us before we started a year or two before we started actually filming. Whitney Houston was approached to play, I think it was Baby Doll. I was going to say Baby Doll. I think it was Baby Doll. And she wanted to do it, but her manager and her daddy said, no, the role's not big enough. Well, apparently she came back to Robert years later and she said, I should have done it. Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, so that's Whitney Houston saying that. So good stories. Oh, man, man. But continuing on with Keenan, I did, I'm going to get you suckered.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And there was no audition or nothing. I don't know how they knew me or something, but they just called my agent and said, we want to hire him to do this role. A role called One-Eyed Sam. I remember. So when I went in that day, we were shooting. And there's lots of stories. I mean, Robin Williams, not Robin, not Robert Williams, Robin Harris was playing my employee at the bar. We've been shooting all day long. I did not know who Robin Harris was. Until somebody said, oh, yeah, Robin Harris is over there. I said, Robin Harris where? I did not. You know, I don't pay attention to people that much. I'm going to do my job and stuff. But it was like, wow, Robin Harris is playing my employee. But anyway, if you remember, I'm going to get you stuck. There was a scene in there where I point to my medals on my jacket. Uh-huh. And I say, yeah, and this is for surfing and this is for whatever it may be. Well, when I go into a room, I look around the room. This is over here. To make it my own. So I know where everything is. I really have been living here for the last 10 years or whatever it is. Well, I went to my jacket and I was looking at all the medals and stuff. And there was a Confederate flag on the jacket. They slipped it in. Somebody put a Confederate flag on my jacket, on a black man's military jacket. They had a Confederate flag. I went to Kenan, and I told Kenan, I said, look here, there's a Confederate flag on this jacket. There's a Confederate pin. You better get somebody to take this piece of crap off. of me or I'm walking out of here. And Kenan said, well, take it off yourself. I said, no, I'm not touching that utterly disgusting piece of crap. You get somebody to take this off. How dare some jackass think this is going to be? Because you know, people watch movies frame by frame a lot of times. That's what they do. If somebody had seen that Confederate flag, what would they have thought of me? You're right. True indeed. Wow. So he got somebody, got a wardrobe person to take it off, but I wasn't touching it. And I was, and I meant this. If that didn't come off my jacket, I'm walking out of here. I don't give a damn whose movie it is. You're right. Yeah. Definitely right. We need more people like you to stand up for that kind of stuff because you would have had someone. I don't care. Yeah, exactly. I don't care. I don't care. It's like when people around me told me, man, I'd take that million dollars and go on about it. But no, you go on about your business. You're part of the problem.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:I got one. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, you're good. I got one more question about the five heartbeats. Okay. All right. I know when I saw you in person, I told you that, you know, the hair flop was my thing. Like, The fight scene, that was it. I fell in love from there. How much of Big Red was really you? That's an interesting question. Because I think everything that I do, everything every actor does has to be a part of them. So you have to remember, like I said, I'm a kid from the south side of Chicago. And at that time when I was growing up, there was no integration, quote unquote. So in my neighborhood, there were pimps, there were prostitutes, there were doctors, there were lawyers, there were plumbers, there were electricians. You got to see everybody in your neighborhood. So you actually got to pick and choose what you wanted to be. And I tell everybody all the time, I said, I saw them pimps. I said, I knew I didn't want to be a parent because they work too hard. They never get a day off. They work 24-7. But you got to see all of that and you got to choose. And maybe I wanted to, you know, at one point, maybe I wanted to be a doctor or maybe I wanted to be a lawyer. You know, I never wanted to be. I knew I didn't want to be a manual laborer. Because, you know, me and my hands working, you know, building stuff, it don't work for me. But at least I had that choice. You know, I had the choice. So, yeah, I got to see all of this stuff. And kids don't get to see this stuff now. Because there's integration. All the professional people have moved out of the neighborhoods. So what's left is the hustlers. That's how these young kids see who has the money in the neighborhood. So what are they going to do? Nobody else is around. I don't get to see no doctors. I don't know how much doctors are making. I get to see Rex over here. He's got a fistful of money. Not understanding that that fistful of money is not going to last because he's going to be dead or in jail. So that's why they say, I didn't think I was going to live to be 21. Because everybody they see doesn't live to be 21. You're right. So now you're going to blame those kids for doing what they do? Right. And I've done some stuff myself. And I'll tell you straight up. There but for the grace of God, go I. Because I could have been locked up for years with some of the little stupid stuff I was doing. I was just a blessed man and didn't get caught. I didn't do a lot of stuff. Let's not get it twisted. I went out there in the street doing a lot of stuff. But one mistake is all it takes. It doesn't matter whether you do 100 crimes or you do one. If you get caught doing a one, It's a rap partner for us. You're right. You don't even have to get caught. You don't have to get caught. No, it can be hearsay. Conspiracy always works for us. That's a new one. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, I try to go to schools. I talk to kids. You know, if somebody asks me, can you go to a prison? Can you go to a juvenile facility? I'm there. Because I want them to know if I can do this, you can do this. I want you to be able to see and touch me. Because it's important for kids to touch. This last thing I'm saying, I'm done after this. Y'all leave me alone now. But my last semester at Notre Dame, I had 12 hours of independent study. So I had no classes. So what I did was I became a substitute teacher in South Bend school system. And I had everything from kindergarten through high school. So I've actually taught from kindergarten through the university because I taught for two years. I was a professor at Illinois State University for two years. But I did all of that. I love kindergarten. Kindergarten was my favorite. But kids need to be touched. I don't understand how teachers teach today. Because you can't touch a kid. I would take a kid and I would grab him and I would hug him and I would tell him, girl, oh boy, it's going to be okay. You are loved.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't touch a kid now for nothing in the world. You bet not. No, but that's what children need. They need to be hugged. They need to be told they're worthy. They need to be disciplined. There was one day I was teaching, boy, the roughest class, the roughest age was middle schoolers. That eighth grade through freshman, that was rough. Eighth Oh, man, seventh and eighth graders. Because they're coming into puberty and they've lost their little minds. But I came in and the principal said, literally, they had run the substitute the day before. They had literally, not figuratively, literally run this woman down the street. So I said, oh, okay. Seventh graders. So he showed me, I was teaching art that day. So he showed me where the art supplies were. And I went through it, and I looked at it over, and I went back down to the office to finish my paperwork. Came back upstairs, went back to the closet to just double-check the supplies, and there was a.38 sitting in that closet. One of the kids had come to school and put that.38 in the closet. So I said, oh, okay, now I know what I'm dealing with. I took that.38. That was.78. I think it was. Wow. So I took the gun back down to the office and I gave it to the principal. And he was, you know, those kids, I walked up and I closed the door and I told those kids, I said, sit your little behinds in these chairs and we're going to get this work done now. And I mean, sit your little behinds in these chairs and let's go to work.
UNKNOWN:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Those kids sat down in those chairs and we started working. About, I think it was about 10, 30, 11 o'clock, the principal came upstairs to the classroom. The door slammed open because he was expecting chaos. It was a black guy. It was a black principal of this school. And he slammed that door open, thought he was going to see kids running around. They were in their chairs doing their work. We were getting work done. And he stood in that doorway for 10 minutes just with his mouth open. And when he decided to leave, he closed that door as quiet as he could close it. And then when I went to lunch with the other teachers, they said, can you just please stay? I said, no, I don't have, you know, I'm just a sub. I don't have credentials. I can't stay. I don't know where I'm going to be assigned. They wanted me to stay. But those kids needed that discipline. Yeah, they did. They needed somebody to tell them what to do. Yeah. And that's the big problem today. I would take 10 minutes after every class that I did, and I would say, okay, these last 10 minutes of class, you talk about anything and ask me anything that you want to ask, any concerns you have about the world, whatever it may be. That didn't include sex. I was not going to be, you know, that's for your parents. Yeah, I mean, there were certain subjects that were taboo. But generally, they just wanted to know because I'm having trouble with my brother and sister. What should I do? Or, you know, I need some food, you know, whatever it may be. I let them talk. I really enjoyed that.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds like a real good job. Yeah. I don't understand how you can be a great teacher without doing that. Yeah. You're right. Interaction with the children. You're right. Mr. James, we would like to thank you for stopping by. Yes. And you gave us an earful and we definitely enjoyed every bit of it. We can use some more dirt. Can I save something for the book? Yeah, go ahead. No, he said save something. Oh, you want to save something for the book? Okay, okay, okay. We'll let you save something for the book. But I really appreciate you guys. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. James. Thank you for stopping by Digital Studios Podcast. And we will catch you in the next one. Okie dokie. Alrighty.
