- 6 weeks ago
"It's not it's just historically inaccurate, it's that this movie is telling the opposite story of why the police infiltrated the Klan and telling the opposite story of what Ron Stallworth was doing," Riley said of Spike Lee's 'BlackKklansman.'
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Hi, this is Mariah Gullo from The Hollywood Reporter, and we're in studio with Boots Riley.
00:09What's up?
00:09How you doing?
00:10All right, I'm doing good.
00:12All right, I'm going to start off by kind of, I want to go 10 years into the future,
00:17and I want to look back on 2018.
00:20Okay.
00:21Do you see kind of the shaping of a new genre with 2018 in films?
00:28You know, I think that's kind of how it works, is like the industry kind of shapes what's there
00:38based on this worked before, so here's the kind of things we're funding.
00:43And so then people even write based on what gets funded.
00:47They'll be like, a lot of people will be like, oh, I'm writing a low-budget slasher flick
00:53because they've seen those, and somebody will give them money for it.
00:57I'm writing a romantic comedy where they travel to Paris, you know, and so it kind of categorizes
01:03that.
01:04And then every now and then, somebody will do something different, so they'll make this
01:10thing, and then people are, it's kind of known, people want something more.
01:16But then, unfortunately, it's like, okay, that new thing is the thing that's getting funded,
01:22so I'm going to make some more of that.
01:24It should just open it up, like, look, we don't know exactly what people want.
01:31They want something new that they haven't seen before, not just, I don't know, how, after
01:38Wes Anderson came out, there was all these, like, I Heart Huckabees and all that kind of
01:44stuff that kind of was trying to get into that particular market.
01:49There will be people copying that, or maybe not necessarily copying it, but influenced
01:55by it.
01:56But then, and that'll be a little, the folks influenced by it, that'll be a little bit
01:59more honest, but on the other hand, then there'll be people that know that they can
02:03get funded by being like, this is like, sorry to bother you.
02:08And I don't down them for that, but that's unfortunate that the folks that are funding
02:15have to have that.
02:18Right.
02:18You know, have to have that reference instead of, like, this is something new, and no, it's
02:23not like, sorry to bother you, or this other stuff.
02:26Right.
02:26You know.
02:27Yeah, because, because it's easy to kind of lump together, like, oh, there's a lot
02:32of success around Oakland-based filmmakers, or films, film in Oakland.
02:38Yeah.
02:39So, oh, there's new, there's a new genre, the Oakland school.
02:43Yeah.
02:44But isn't it kind of a dream of a filmmaker to be part of some sort of a, like, the French
02:48new wave, or the American new wave?
02:51You know, definitely you want, artistically want to make a mark.
02:54You know, I would just like to see, you know, I think art that gets developed by market forces
03:05ends up getting constrained in ways that impede the actual art.
03:14I would like that new wave to be people pushing the boundaries and doing something new, but not
03:26just, not just using the path that gets beaten the year before them.
03:32Yeah.
03:32Do you, I mean, are you excited about the fact that you did kind of, you know, kind of broke
03:38during a time period where it is fresh and it isn't, I mean, you tell me if it's impeded
03:46by the marketplace or if this is the time to be really creatively stimulated?
03:50Yeah, I think, I think there's a window that's opened.
03:54Yeah.
03:55And it's, like, how people choose to take it.
03:58Like, D'Angelo, take it on the music side.
04:01D'Angelo came out with, what was his second album, I forget what it's called, but with
04:07How Does It Feel?
04:08And he had a sound that definitely was influenced by other sounds before, but it was brand new.
04:15And then everybody came out sounding like D'Angelo, right?
04:20So that when he came out, it was kind of like, dude, you kind of sound like D'Angelo.
04:25I mean, you know, you are D'Angelo, but you sound like all this other stuff that came
04:30out that sounds like D'Angelo.
04:33And so, and that's because that was what was getting pushed, like, oh, we got an artist
04:41that sounds like D'Angelo, we can get him on the radio.
04:44That same thing, it's the same thing with film.
04:48And, you know, I think there's brilliant artists who are already filmmakers and who could become
04:59filmmakers, and I think hopefully the through line is pushing envelopes, telling good stories
05:08and having a passion behind it.
05:10And then that creates, through that combination of their passion and their life influences,
05:16create something else that people won't say looks like Sorry to Bother You or this, but
05:22they'll have the spirit of that.
05:26Are you bracing yourself for the possibility that you're going to see a major movie studio
05:33do some sort of a knockoff of Sorry to Bother You?
05:37You know what, I'm not thinking about that too much, but yeah, I mean, just if you look
05:42at history, how that happens, it'll happen, they'll be like, it's like Sorry to Bother You,
05:48but it has a gorilla and a 20,000 foot plane that's about to crash into Chicago, you know,
05:59or something like that.
06:00And it costs $200 million to make.
06:07So, but, you know, and that's how it goes.
06:13So I'm not worried about that because I think what will shine through are the people that
06:18are doing the stuff they love.
06:21Right.
06:22Yeah.
06:23Sorry to Bother You covered a lot of issues.
06:26It's the economy, cultural appropriation, race relations, corporate corruption, gender
06:30politics.
06:32Are you going to need to take a break from these subjects or are they, are you heading full
06:37steam into the next project with those?
06:39I don't know how I could take a break from those and stay connected to the way the world
06:46is, you know, so yeah, it's just what, it's funny because I've seen people make a list
06:54of what the movie handles and I really hadn't thought about that it handles those things.
06:59You know, I knew, you know, because it all grows out of just heightening the contradictions
07:06of situations and, and, and having those situations grow out of the main story and, and also trying
07:17to talk about the larger philosophical ideas that are, that grow out of those situations
07:24or put those situations in context.
07:27And, you know, so I didn't have to go like, oh, I'm going to handle this.
07:31I'm going to do that.
07:32It's just kind of what happens when, you know, you let the light refract, refract off of the
07:40other reflections that are there.
07:42You spent a lot of time with Sorry to Bother You Now.
07:47Have you been satisfied with how audiences have reacted to it?
07:53Yeah, it's always fun sitting in a screening.
07:58You know, people kind of have a lot of the same things they laugh at.
08:03Some of, some of the stuff in it, people aren't sure whether they should laugh or whatever,
08:09but it does something to them, makes people uncomfortable, makes people squirm or, you
08:15know, things like that.
08:17And, yeah, I love messing with people.
08:20Collective Bargaining was featured prominently in this movie.
08:24Are you excited to be a director now, knowing that you're going into the filmmaking industry,
08:32which is still a very strong union, at least in the United States?
08:38As being someone that's been very broke most of my life, definitely being in a situation
08:45where I can pay my bills and that situation being available to me because people fought
08:52for it together, collectively, is definitely a good feeling and I want to honor that.
09:01What I'm really excited for is that that idea of people fighting together and uniting together
09:10on the job seems like something that is spreading past the things that are traditionally unionized
09:18and going further into the 93% of working people that are not organized.
09:29That excites me.
09:31You've been nominated for some Independent Spirit Awards.
09:34What do you think about the awards process, the awards season?
09:40Yeah, it's fun.
09:43There's a lot of alcohol and hors d'oeuvres.
09:48I like talking about my movie.
09:51I like talking about movies and going to movies.
09:54So that's really part of the big thing, you know, is getting more people to see the movie.
10:01And the awards season allows for some of that.
10:07And the awards season is kind of like, you know, getting other people that are filmmakers
10:14of some sort or critics or producers or whatever, which I guess is a filmmaker, to see the film
10:22and to kind of know what I'm up to.
10:26So it's kind of also collecting people that are like, I'm down with that.
10:32You know, let me tell me how I can help something else like this happen.
10:37And it's good to see that there's a lot of that.
10:39There's a lot of people who are in the film industry that want to be making films that have
10:50to do with their passion for the world and didn't know that they could.
10:55You took some issues with the historical inaccuracies in Black Klansmen.
11:00I would say that it's not the historical inaccuracies because I don't care.
11:06You know, I don't have any marriage to the facts when making art.
11:13But the question is, you know, because it's not a documentary, but the question is, what
11:20are the changes achieving?
11:22What is your political point that you're making with those changes?
11:27Because that's what's happening.
11:28I mean, I was a telemarketer.
11:30Most of the stuff that happened in my movie didn't really happen.
11:35What are the embellishments that I made?
11:38What am I saying with those things?
11:39Right, right.
11:40Right.
11:42So with those made-up heroic acts and with the things that Spike left out, that he was
11:53trying to make a false narrative that the police are allies in the fight against racism.
12:01The real Ron Stallworth, he infiltrated the Progressive Labor Party, which was a radical organization.
12:11He was doing that at the time.
12:13But at the same time as he was working with the police to invade the Klan, and he was the
12:22police and also talking to the FBI every week, he was infiltrating the Progressive Labor Party
12:28because their slogan was, smash the Klan.
12:33This is not in the movie.
12:35So he infiltrated that group because they didn't like that they were wanting to break up Klan
12:41rallies, so he'd go to the PLP meetings, which were about smashing slash stopping the Klan
12:51rallies, find out what they were going to do, and report that to the police, who the police
12:55then had their guy in the Klan, and magically the Klan avoided having their rallies stopped.
13:05So, it's not that it's just historically inaccurate, it's that this movie is telling the opposite
13:15story of why the police infiltrated the Klan, and telling the opposite story of what Ron
13:25Stallworth was doing.
13:26The real thing that happens in there where, and I want to say, everybody in that movie did
13:30an excellent job, from the actors to the cinematographer, and even with my problems with Spike, he's
13:37a master storyteller.
13:39He did it.
13:39My problems with him are his political choices.
13:43Politically, he's got an agenda, like we all do.
13:45We've all got a political outlook and agenda.
13:48I wanted to talk to you a bit about Tessa Thompson's character, Detroit.
13:52Was it important to create a new kind of love interest role, somebody who is a fully fleshed
13:58out-person, independent of the main character?
14:02Are you writing women you know?
14:05Really, I wrote me.
14:07Yeah.
14:08You know, I wrote me, and because I think maybe it works out better if you write them from
14:19the inside, and you have some idea that we're all human, and, you know, there's often obviously
14:28different details, so it's, what would I do if I was in that situation?
14:33I wanted her to have an intellectual contradiction around art and organizing, because we're
14:46humans, we have those intellectual contradictions, not everyone has those, but I wanted her to
14:52have that, and I think sometimes people don't read that into it, because you're not expecting
14:57that, you're not looking for that, you're looking for that in some other character, right?
15:02And so I wanted her to have goals and things that, like, in it, like, Cassius has nothing
15:09to do with the stuff she's doing with Left Eye, and her goals around that, and her conflict
15:16around art and all of that have nothing to do with that, and she does stuff based on what
15:24she needs, and not necessarily because of what she needs from Cassius, you know?
15:31Yeah.
15:31So a couple more questions for you.
15:34What are you working on next, and also, what are the plans for the coup in 2019?
15:42Let's see.
15:44The things I can talk about, I'm doing a pilot, I'm creating a TV show, I'm doing, and I'm
15:55creating that with Michael Ellenberg's new studio, Media Res.
15:59Michael Ellenberg is one of the people that brought Game of Thrones to HBO, and so working
16:05on that, shooting the pilot in 2019.
16:09I'm writing and directing an episode of Guillermo del Toro's Netflix horror anthology, Ten After
16:20Midnight, so he's handed me a short story that I'm adapting, and I did that basically because
16:28I want to work with Guillermo del Toro, and then a feature film deal, but I can't talk
16:35about the details of that, but that I'm writing and directing, and then for the coup, we plan
16:42to be performing at the Oscars.
16:45Excellent.
16:47I'd really like to see that.
16:49Thank you so much.
16:51Thanks for having me.
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