Jeffrey Wright - Interview

Interview, July, 2000 by Martha Frankel

MF: What moves you to take a part in a film? Does the character have to be the lead, or is there something else that pulls you in?

JW: I did this film, Too Tired to Die, because the director, Wonsuk Chin, approached me about doing it, and I thought it was a really interesting script. He's South Korean, and he went to school in New York, and I was impressed by his use of the language and the fact that he had only been speaking English for about six years. The imagery that he drew up with the words was really wonderful.

MF: And what kind of character do you play?

JW: I play a downtown eccentric who hangs out in the coffee shop and talks a lot of shit about things that he only pretends to know about.

MF: Oh, I know that guy.

JW: [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

MF: You also have D-Tox coming out, with Sylvester Stallone. Was that a really big budget, Hollywood film?

JW: D-Tox I don't really wanna talk about right now. [silence]

MF: Okey-dokey. How about Cement?

JW: That was a film that Adrian Pasdar directed. He's been a good friend of mine. It's kind of a cops and criminals film, but it's hard to decipher who's who. We shot it guerilla-style, mostly out in Long Beach, California. My character's struggling to maintain his balance in an imbalanced, criminal underground.

MF: Have you ever felt the desire to move to California?

JW: No, not at all. I'm an East Coast kind of guy. I'm not sure whether Los Angeles borders on the ocean or on oblivion. I always feel that I'm two steps away from the other side when I'm out there. It's more like a vacation place or a place to visit than a place to hunker down. I like New York because you're kind of forced to smell everybody else's funk. So it keeps you biologically attached to the world around you.

MF: You seem to have no problem going back and forth between theater and films. You did the plays Angels in America and Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk [1996].

JW: Movies are easier, and better pay. The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative. When you get on stage, though, all the collaboration is over and you get to control the time and the space. It's satisfying in a way that film is not. I like to do theater and hopefully be effective. Most actors, at least contemporary actors of my generation, can't do it. They don't have the chops. They haven't made the effort. And it's one reason why I don't go to a lot of movies--they're more and more dominated by corporate values and fiscal concerns as opposed to cinematic concerns.

Martha Frankel is a writer in New York.