Out of those who make $20 million, I would say probably 5 percent, 10 percent, are really superstars. The black film superstars are Denzel, Whoopi Goldberg, Will Smith, Sam Jackson, Halle Berry, Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock. Oprah Winfrey was a superstar. How come there are only two superstar girls? There are more African-American stars than women stars combined. We don’t hate women in Hollywood, but somehow more stories are written for men. The women ask why; maybe it’s because men write them. I’ve done so many movies with women, from City of Angels to Sommersby to just now Life, Or Something Like It, but I’m in a minority in that way, because most studios want the guy movies—blow up some buildings and cars and do hocus-pocus and special effects. So black women have the feeling that there is both a thing against women here and a racial thing against them.
I guess all combined, there are maybe ten people, twelve people, that I would say yes to anything they want. Will Smith is one of them. I have a story about Will. Many years ago, a movie was presented to us with Debra Winger, and I think they wanted Jack Nicholson at the time. It was about artificial insemination, and I said, hmm, interesting. A girl wants to know who her father is ’cause her mom tells her she was conceived through artificial insemination. I thought it would be cool to do that with an African-American woman and a white guy. And we called Whoopi Goldberg and did a movie called Made in America. There was a kid in it called Will Smith. I had met him when he was doing a scene from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, with Quincy Jones. I walked over to Will and I said, God, I like you—I don’t know you, but I like you. And I said, you’re gonna be a movie star one day. A few months later, Fred Schepisi called me and said, there is a movie I wanna do so badly—it’s a play I just saw, called Six Degrees of Separation. And I said, on one condition—Will Smith is gonna star; otherwise, we’re gonna lose money. He said, who is Will Smith? I said, I’m gonna introduce you. But you should know before, I’m not writing a check unless Will is in the movie. And Will established right off the bat that he can act. He was fantastic. After that, he could do Independence Day and Men in Black and anything he wants. But I didn’t think to myself, oh, I’m talking to an African-American actor. For me it was, oh, I like this guy. Most people I know think this way in our business—they think about the part before they think about whether someone is white or black.
For example, with Made in America, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if a black girl finds that her father is white, and wouldn’t it be funny if the mother said, what? Like, white? I don’t want white like we see in the movies. Like, how white? So it was so funny; cool. I did a movie called Power of One against apartheid and a movie I’m very proud of with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, called High Crimes. They’d probably never allow this one in South Africa, but it’s okay. We had to make the decision should it be a black guy or a white guy? No, we thought; it’s about who is a good actor, who could be a good cool thing to be with Ashley.
I was going to do a movie called The Negotiator. So we get the screenplay, and Sylvester Stallone is attached. We liked F. Gary Gray. I think he did only two movies before that. Anyway, we liked Gary and Stallone. Stallone wanted the other guy, the negotiator, to be a girl, and didn’t like the director, and I thought, hmm, we have to make a decision. We decided instead of Stallone to hire Samuel Jackson, and instead of the girl to hire Kevin Spacey, and Gary Gray directed it.
To my surprise, at the outset there was friction between Sam and Gary Gray. And I said, I can’t believe it. It’s two African Americans. One is directing and one is acting. What’s wrong with them? So I tell them, the other day two friends of mine were fighting on a tennis court and they’re both Israelis, and I said, what are you doing? What a bleeping Israeli thing you’re doing to me. So I went to Samuel Jackson and I said, what’s going on here? He said, oh, he doesn’t listen to me, he’s too da-da-da. And I went to Gary and said, what’s going on? Is that like a black thing you’re doing, or a Jewish thing, or what is going on? It’s a territorial thing. Now, the territorial thing was between actors; it wasn’t about black and white. One was Jackson and one was just getting his way, was not asking for advice. So even when I was playful, it never dawned on me, there was never a thought of black and white. Never a thought. When I did A Time to Kill, with Sam Jackson, it wasn’t just about a black man; it was about a father who wants to avenge the rape of his daughter. The movie was shot because it was written by John Grisham and it had an African-American background. So again, it wasn’t a racial thing. In that scene in court at the end—five minutes of twenty years of my work—there’s the line “Do they deserve to die?” And Carl Lee Hailey, Sam’s character, says, “Yes, they deserve to die. I hope they burn in hell!” That was the highlight of my product reel.
Many black people say Hollywood is racist, but why is it that when we did Power of One, which is a very good movie, it didn’t do well in this country and it did some good business in other countries? Someone said, oh, the Americans. They only care about the blacks in their country; they couldn’t care less what happened in Africa; the African Americans in America are racist against blah, blah, blah. The movie tested fantastic in America, but I couldn’t get anybody to come to the theaters.
I’m not defending Hollywood. But I found a lot of French actors who say that Hollywood is racist because practically no Frenchman can get a part on account of their accent. I’ve found that, with the exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger, nobody with a German accent can get a part. It’s an endless thing. But how far do we want to take this? Isn’t Dick Parsons the head of the greatest conglo, AOL Time Warner? Isn’t Colin Powell secretary of state? I think when people are upset that they’re not doing well, they find a million reasons. Do I think that socially there is no discrimination? No. I think there is. Of course there is racial discrimination. I am Jewish; I know there are problems.
When Sam Jackson was cast in the leading role of The Negotiator, I was thinking of him first as an actor, not as a black man. When Morgan Freeman was cast in the lead in High Crimes, I wasn’t thinking of him as a black man. And the great Whoopi Goldberg actually fell in love and went to bed with Ted Danson, not only in Made in America but in real life. I’m not saying there is no racism. I’m not even the man, but I think it’s not a black and white thing; there are a lot of gray areas. The issue is not so much worrying about audience perception and racism; it’s worrying about the credibility of the story.
Here’s an example. We’re doing a movie called Runaway Jury. Will Smith was disapproved by Grisham. A lot of people say, well, Grisham is racist. No, Grisham is the same guy who wrote A Time to Kill. He’s not racist at all, but what he said was, if you put Will Smith in that role, you would open an undertone of association, of what the writer’s intentions were about the man against the big corporation. You would think, oh, it’s the black guy, or the African-American little guy who’s screwed by the corporation. And then the interpretation would be all because he’s not white. And the thing is, no, it’s not white or black, it’s because he is just a guy and they are the big corporation. So the reason not every lead goes to bed with his leading lady is because when we get a screenplay that is finished, the writer has already boxed us in to a story. It’s not like I’m saying, okay, we’re having a nice day, I’m writing a story. If I wrote it, believe me, everybody would be sleeping with everybody.
In art, if somebody looks like a star, I don’t care if they’re white or black, I’ll go, come here; I have a contract for you. Well, thank you; I’ll sign mine in a little bit. We all like the scent of what might be a big market. We did a movie with Martin Lawrence called Black Knight, where we’re making fun of the Middle Ages. But when it comes to the accountants, to the chief financial officers, to the people who are sitting on the cash machine, that’s where the problem is. The Hollywood business community is white; the moguls and the people with the yachts and the G4s are white. I think you would find very few Hollywood executives who are African American. I feel the studio exe
cs kind of look at me like I’m a foreigner.
I go to France a lot, and they ask me about American movies and what is this invasion of the French culture with American movies and American wine. I’m sitting there saying, how are we going to invade the French culture? Why don’t you think you can ship as much French wine to America? You know what, your people want to see American movies and your people want to drink red wine. If you want to compete with Napa Valley, they’re trying their best to make better wine than da-da-da. What I was saying is that it’s all about what consumers want, and where the consumption is.
I’m building a company that does movies, does television, does sports. We own Puma, so I see this young girl, Serena Williams, and meet her father, Richard, and we build a whole agenda around Puma sponsoring her clothing. We built this thing around a young black girl who’s just rising, and we backed her up. She went to play at the French Open in the colors of the Cameroon team. Now she’s on the cover of Time magazine. She’s a superstar. The Williams sisters are cool girls, and their father is very interesting and very educated. That sounds racist, and I don’t mean it that way at all—saying the Williams are very educated, and like, why not? But when I used the word “educated,” I was thinking of the stereotype for athletes, for young tennis players. The Williams girls study and they write poems and they’re multilingual. Oh, they’re phenomenal girls. I can sit there and talk to these girls and it’s beautiful.
Some people talk like Oliver Stone, as if there’s a conspiracy. They say the studio system is a closed white boys’ club. But it’s actually about money. Someone is making $200 million if they can afford to pay Denzel or Chris Tucker $20 million, so who wants to share that? I would say, first of all, people are too selfish here, so they don’t have time to have a conspiracy. They’re too arrogant for a conspiracy. It’s not like they’re meeting to share anything, so the arrogance is key.
I can refer to a meeting I had many years ago with Robert Redford. I was young, and Redford said to me, I’m not getting any scripts, and I said, really? You? No kidding. Height of his career. And I found out most people assumed that Redford is so busy, why even bother. We would always talk about movies without even thinking about him. I’m not saying that race is as simple, but it could be there is an assumption that Hollywood is closed to the black community, and the assumption could be wrong. Maybe the club door is closed, but not by conspiracy. Maybe it’s by disassociation socially. Maybe it’s about African Americans and whites not hanging out in the evenings, so maybe that dinner, or that party at the beach, or a long weekend where you’d kind of drink and watch the Lakers or something, is very white or very black, or very whatever. Like Wall Street used to be. And it’s possible that last Sunday, when we were a bunch of white guys watching the Lakers’ Sacramento game, what we were talking about businesswise were the opportunities between white people. And it’s true: unless you get into that room, you don’t have access. But if we hang out, we talk, and if we talk, we do business.
I was flying one day from Bora-Bora and I stood in the wrong line, and finally somebody was screaming at me and searching me and terrorizing me. Then it was an African-American officer who just said, you come here, and he did his duty with dignity, with gentleness. He asked me the same horrible questions, but he was kind; he was not screaming. And when I drove out of the airport, I said, this is a man who represented his country without anger, who did his job well. I called the airport and found out who he was, and I went to see his kids and his family and we became friends. It was just a gesture; it’s only a personal story. But it’s contact.
Will blacks be executive film producers in our lifetime? Will we see peace in the Middle East in our lifetime? I hope; I really hope. Would I have thought that Denzel Washington and Halle Berry would be standing there and we would be cheering for them? Would I ever think that Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman would not win almost because they’re white? I believe that we are on the right path. In 1991, I received a humanitarian of the year award. The Scud missiles were flying, and I remember two people came to sing “Hava Nagila” for me, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte together, and the whole place was rocking. It was a very moving evening. I couldn’t believe that all these white guys are gonna sing with Sidney Poitier and Harry Bela-fonte. And I was thinking about Marvin Davis and the Carousel of Hope Ball, which raises money for childhood diabetes; they’re honoring Sidney Poitier this year, and Halle Berry will present the award to him. I think a lot is possible in our lifetime. It’s not like we’re surrounded by wholesome people who never did anything to get in the club; it’s not like white people came with a suit and tie and stood in line and didn’t step on anybody. So blacks will be part of the club soon. There’s no question.
It is very important that Denzel and Halle, two black people, won the Academy Award in 2002. Never in a million years, when we say we need some A-list names, would the name Halle Berry have come in the same breath as Julia Roberts. Never would you have heard, Halle Berry’s a star. And now she’s a superstar, and the superstars transcend any kind of designation.
Audiences are changing their views now, with several black superstars on the A-list. People didn’t go to see them much before. We have to make money, and we’re only going to put these people in roles if they draw in the crowds. If they don’t draw in the crowds, you have to face it: it’s business. That’s when I’m going to use the word “black.” When a black man and a white man—or a black man and a white woman—when black and white are having a good time, like in Lethal Weapon or Trading Places, everybody loves those movies. Everybody. It’s big. If the movie is fun, it’s also very interesting culture-wise and language-wise if you have a white guy with a black neighbor, the Meet the Parents type thing. It’s not only about De Niro and Ben Stiller; you can do it in any configuration. So I think the audiences, as time goes by, from Lethal Weapon to Trading Places to all those Martin Lawrence movies, to Will Smith, will be more and more open to these movies.
What are people actually looking for in movies? They’re looking for five basic emotions. It’s sadness or laughter or fear or compassion or a mix, or to be dazzled with fireworks. The easiest thing to do is with the guy or girl next door. In the minds of the moviegoers, the guy or the girl next door is blond and blue-eyed. They are definitely not Mexican; they’re definitely not African American; they don’t have accents. They’re kind of cheerleaders, all-American. So when you give me a screenplay with a black actor, say Independence Day with Will Smith, I think, hmmm, should we do it? I think, well, are there enough fireworks and it’s not da-da-da so people won’t think it’s only about a black guy?
So, yes, there are issues of race in films. But it’s not because people are bad or good. It’s because there is not the deep-rooted kind of work done to open the world, to open the consumer. The problem is educating the consumer. If they want to buy black and black and red and yellow, sure, we have it. There was a time when the consumer wouldn’t even go to see Lena Horne at the Cotton Club.
How do we educate the consumer? That’s a good question, and an important question. I think that maybe if Richard Gere feels he has responsibility for the Dalai Lama, maybe we should feel that we have also some responsibility, because we are all very wealthy, fortunate, privileged people, and we should think, yes, it’s important to help the sick and the elderly and the deceased, but it’s also very important to help the healthy and the living and the future and the kids. Maybe we should have a fund, a low percentage of our profits, to encourage filmmakers to make movies that don’t have racial barriers or to solve business issues connected to racial problems. If I could find a couple of people to work with me, I would go for that. It would be a good thing to do. Let’s fund some of these movies, and let’s show that we can make money and do well with them.
I think Hollywood itself is a bunch of cowards about fighting things like anti-Semitism or antiblack racism. I think Hollywood has this righteous thing about honoring people every five minutes to raise mo
ney. Everyone has his charity or her charity, and I don’t think they get their hands dirty in any issues. When they come into an event and take a stand, I don’t see anybody sustaining or staying with a cause when the cameras are not on and nobody heard that you did a good thing. I don’t see anybody giving something anonymously that would never be found out so that you could say anonymously, yeah, she gave. I think they’re not my kind of people. I don’t socialize much here. People here love gaining the respect of all of our friends. Everybody comes to nice events, from Michael Jackson to Liza Minnelli, da-da-da. That’s good, but we have to do more than that. I mean, really, really.
I can’t change the system, myself alone, no. If there was a place, a way to do something about it, yes, absolutely, I would be part of it, because I come from a place where Jews and Palestinians are shooting and killing one another and I want that to end. I want people to eventually be happy neighbors. I feel as sad as anyone does about this. It makes me think—and I’m not being sarcastic— maybe with all these organizations for helping people with different illnesses, from AIDS to multiple sclerosis to depression, there could be a charity to help whites and blacks to work and socialize together. Why not?
We get more right than wrong, so we stay in business. I want to challenge the idea that to stay in business, you can’t challenge the formula. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You go under the radar. You give them Six Degrees of Separation, you give them Free Willy, Made in America, something challenging like Tigerland or Mambo Kings, something outside the box like Out of Sight. And you yoke them together. So either the theater has to take them, or your partners are heavyweights enough to forgive you for losing money from time to time because it balances; the bottom line is cool. It’s from the periphery that you can start to change. That’s where I’m talking about that fund for independents. I wish I could start it. I’d like to say to a director, your next job is a love story and it’s the next Halle Berry and the next Denzel. The butler is white. And the profit is green.
America Behind the Color Line Page 35