00:00I keep seeing this meme about you, and it says this man, Wendell Pierce, built 75 homes.
00:06Right. Well, it's 40.
00:10So I'm here with Wendell Pierce. How are you doing?
00:13I'm doing great. How are you?
00:14All right, so you're in one of the most talked about films on the strip, Clemency.
00:18Yes, yes.
00:19Tell me about it, and why do you think it's important for people to see this movie?
00:22One, Alfre Woodard.
00:24Yeah.
00:25To have a vehicle like this for her, she's an immense talent.
00:29She is well-deserving of a piece like this, and to see a strong black woman in the lead role of a film,
00:39and to get a chance to work with her was why I did it.
00:41But I really think between she and Chino Wei, who is the director, Chikwu, who is a new talent.
00:51She has a great eye, a great visionary, and it was a wonderful script.
00:55I'm very excited to be a part of it.
00:56So I think it's going to be one of the films that people talk about.
01:00I think so.
01:01And then tell me a little bit about the character that you play.
01:04I play her husband, Richard.
01:06And he is a man who is in the midst of a relationship falling apart.
01:14Between the stress of being a warden at a prison, and then time and again having to deal with executions,
01:24she has a crisis of conscience.
01:27At the same time, the impact that has on their personal relationship.
01:31And so you see that struggle, and whether or not people are willing to do the work so that they stay together is what our journey was all about.
01:40One of the highlights in this film is I actually get to read.
01:44I'm a teacher.
01:45Oh.
01:45And I actually get to read, for the first time on film, The Beginning of Invisible Man.
01:51Oh, wow.
01:52Powerful.
01:52Which has never been filmed, nothing has ever been done in cinema about it.
01:57So between the two, it was a very special film to be a part of.
02:01So we're going to switch gears from Sundance, because I keep seeing this meme about you.
02:05And it says, this man, Wendell Pierce, built 75 homes in New York.
02:09Right.
02:10It's 40.
02:11Oh, 40.
02:12Okay.
02:12The number is incorrect.
02:13It's 40.
02:14But still.
02:14Yes.
02:15In your hometown of New Orleans.
02:16I grew up in a very special neighborhood called Punch-A-Train Park in New Orleans.
02:21And it was the first place in post-World War II where African Americans could purchase houses in segregated New Orleans.
02:28Because there was a time in New Orleans, if you were black, you could only go to a park one day a week.
02:33Wednesdays, Negro Day.
02:35And in the advocacy to have access to a green space, they created Punch-A-Train Park.
02:39And my parents' generation, who were like a Moses generation, really made it a bucolic place to grow up, like a little black Mayberry.
02:47And it was totally destroyed in Katrina.
02:49And I knew that if my generation, this little Joshua generation, owed it to them to rebuild it.
02:55And so I put together a resident-initiated non-profit, Punch-A-Train Park Community Development Corp.
03:00So we could rebuild our neighborhood brick by brick, block by block, house by house.
03:04And so we built 40 houses.
03:07Wow.
03:07Absolutely amazing.
03:08So I'm going to clap for you.
03:11Because usually people are screaming from the mountains house.
03:15But this is something that you did very silently and just like from the heart for your hometown.
03:20So I absolutely commend you for that.
03:21There's a great legacy of artists being activists.
03:24You know, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, going all the way back to Paul Robeson, you know, Ruby Dee, Ozzie Davis.
03:32And so they've passed on the legacy to us that we should continue.
03:37And I'm just trying to exercise our right of self-determination.
03:40I believe the 21st century civil rights movement is economic development.
03:46So that's what I tried to do.
03:47I had a response to Baltimore because I was working there with The Wire.
03:51I built a 110 apartment complex there, Nelson Cole.
03:57And we had 185 construction jobs and now about 40 permanent jobs left over.
04:04So it's about exercising your right of self-determination.
04:08Extraordinary.
04:08Wow.
04:09Well, thank you.
04:10Thank you very much.
04:11I hope you all come to see Clemency.
04:12Yes, absolutely.
04:13So Wendell Pierce, Clemency.
04:15Definitely check it out.
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