A Conversation with Kevin Willmott - filmmaker - Interview

African American Review, Summer, 2001 by Jeff Loeb

Loeb: Although you fictionalize it, you eventually focus on the Tilly Polite shooting in the character Queen Bey plays, Mama Butler. Of course, it was an actual event, and a pretty famous one, since the State Supreme Court case is still in all the law books.

Willmott: Tilly was a friend of my mother's, and her murder hurt my mother very dearly. I remember her coming back from the funeral crying, and I think that, symbolically, what I tried to do with that shooting is to show what eventually killed the street. When Tilly and James Gilham and the other leaders of the street either left or were killed, then the real foundation that held that place together was gone. The old timers kept 9th Street as a functional business district, but when they died or left, these other influences came in and completely exploited the area. I don't deal with the Tilly shooting in the film the way it actually occurred, but her death and the effect it had on my mother are lasting impressions that I really had to make an important statement about.

Loeb: Just to change subjects a little, Isaac Hayes, who's made a real comeback lately, not only plays a fairly significant part in the film but also did the original music. How were you able to get him for a low-budget film by an unknown with no money?

Willmott: A woman who owns a talent agency in Kansas City had a connection with him and said he might be interested. So we sent him just his part, and he really liked it. He said it reminded him of growing up in Memphis. Isaac, you know, grew up at the time of the film. He knew the old timers, the kind of neighborhoods they had then, who ran those kind of joints, what they cared about. If you needed taking care of, needed a meal, they'd take you in the back and feed you- that whole world that is gone to a large degree. Usually, Isaac plays a tough guy or a detective. Because he's got that great look and that great voice, they always cast him as a tough guy and put a gun in his hand. He rarely gets the opportunity to play something he knows. You don't know who Isaac is in this movie for a long time. One of the neat things he did was that he never took his hat off. I think he did that because he wanted to show people that he is a character actor; he doesn't just have to be a heavy. He's told me that this is the best thing he's ever done, and I think it's because he's never had an opportunity to do anything like this before. But it's also because he liked working with us; he knew we didn't have any money and were struggling. You know, he had just been in this movie, It Could Happen to You, and they had him staying in one of the best hotels in New York. Then he comes over to our movie, and we're taking up a collection for ice, and he was just really beautiful. He didn't play the big star role, yet he made the whole thing fun.

Loeb: What about Martin Sheen? He seems to suggest that there's a broader, caring community out there, one that doesn't concern itself with mere materiality? In fact, didn't Sheen agree to a part in the film because of your work on behalf of the homeless?