All-star cast tackles fear & prejudice in 'Crash'

Jet, May 16, 2005

An all-star cast of Hollywood heavyweights tackles fear, prejudice and racism from numerous perspectives in the new film, CRASH.

Don Cheadle produced and stars in the film that attracted the talents of such performers as Larenz Tate, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Nona Gaye, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Ryan Phillipe, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner and Michael Pena.

The film was the brainchild of director Paul Haggis and based on his own experience as a car-jacking victim in Los Angeles. He said he went home, changed his locks and wondered about the two men who'd victimized him--how long they'd been friends, whether they considered themselves criminals and if they felt justified in their actions. He decided to write a movie from their perspective.

"I'd seen the many ways we discriminate against each other in everyday life," Haggis said. "I'd seen how we rationalize and excuse it, how we organize our lives so that we don't have to deal with it, and how we deny that racial problems exist. But, it wasn't until after 9/11 that I understood how to write this piece. Because the movie isn't really about race or class--it's about fear of strangers."

In the movie, a White woman (Bullock) is car-jacked by two Black men (Tate and Ludacris) and the story unfolds from there, It happens in a 36-hour period in Los Angeles and involves a Persian store owner, two car-jackers, a rookie police officer, a Korean couple, a Black television director and his wife and a Brentwood housewife and her district attorney husband. All their lives intersect in that 36-hour period.

The first person he had in mind when putting together the story was Don Cheadle.

"Don was the first person we approached and the first person who said yes," Haggis said.

Cheadle said he loved the script and was prepared to handle any role in the movie. "The script felt like real people saying real things in real situations," he said. "That was the attraction for me. This isn't a polemic and this isn't some sort of investigation of race. It's not. We're not trying to wrap anything in a bow or give any lessons."

He pointed out that the city of Los Angeles where people spend more time in cars than mass transit-using New York or Chicago is also a pivotal character in the movie.

"Los Angeles is one of the first places where Whites will become a minority very soon, so I think it has its own sort of makeup."

Cheadle's character, a police officer, is the one who touches most of the lives of those in the film, but it's not told strictly from his perspective.

He said of his character: "He's seen too much on the job; he's seen too much in his family. He's sort of divorced himself, either by circumstances in his life or by his own doing, from those real, emotional human beats that drive us."

Haggis, who was nonstop in his praise of Cheadle, said, "You don't have to give Don dialogue at all. In fact, I kept pulling it away from him because he can place so much in silences, in looks. He's a brilliant actor."

Cheadle, who received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Hotel Rwanda last year, was so impressed with the project that he signed on to serve as producer of the movie.

His involvement helped attract others to the project.

Cheadle's name attracted Ludacris to come in to audition.

"When I found out Don Cheadle was producing it, I stepped to the table and tried out for the part," the rapper-turned-actor told JET. "Don Cheadle, I felt, is one of the most underrated Black actors out there. And when I found out who else was attached to it, I immediately said, 'I've got to be a part of this.' I think it's going to help a lot in my acting career. I'm the most inexperienced actor in the movie. I had to step up to the plate and get my thing right. There are so many A-list actors here. There are so many seasoned actors, and I've done just two movies (2 Fast 2 Furious and the soon-to-be released Hustle and Flow). Everybody else has done like 20 movies."

Like Ludacris, Terrence Howard was attracted to the project because of the strong cast.

"The fact that it had such an eclectic group of very powerful, talented individuals attracted me," Howard said. "I wanted to be a part of that before I even knew the subject matter. And once you hear the subject matter, it's like 'Oh my goodness! You want me to be a part of this? You think I'm worthy of this?' That's how I felt."

He also was attracted to the honesty and the characters and the way they develop as the film progresses. "My character allowed me to face fears that I've never faced in my life. It allowed me to be afraid and take someone else's perspective. I was always a stand-up type of man for the slightest injustice. My character is someone who is completely and diametrically opposite of me. He made me understand myself more. I learn from all my movies, but this one allowed me to see a weaker side of my nature, of man's nature."

Larenz Tate was similarly moved by the subject and the final product.

"This movie was really refreshing," he said. "I walked away liberated. I felt liberated going in. Finally, we could get to the truth of some things and get honest about what some of our thoughts are. We don't often talk about it outwardly with one another. We'll talk in our own groups about others, where it's safe. But once we shine that light on that ugly sort of face that we all have, it's a good thing because now we begin to expose the ignorance. It's evenly distributed--not just Black or White or Latin or Asian or Middle Eastern. It's intertwined."