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'The Defiant Ones' Director Allen Hughes stopped by the THR offices for a candid conversation.
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00:00Hi, this is Mariah Gullo from The Hollywood Reporter and I'm here with
00:03Alan Hughes, the director of The Defiant Ones, HBO's new four-part documentary.
00:08Alan, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So there's so
00:13much to unpack here. I know that this was a three-and-a-half-year project for you
00:20and all the episodes are out. Yes, finally. Finally, so you have a little
00:24bit of time to reflect, and I kind of wanted to ask you, what do you want to
00:30talk about regarding this documentary? Because it is beyond defining. It's
00:36basically about the partnership between Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, but then
00:43where do you go from here? After some reflection, what is this
00:46documentary about? It's so interesting. I've been asked a lot, what do you
00:52want people to take away from this documentary? What's the greatest thing
00:56you learned during the process of this documentary? And anyone who watches it,
01:00you'll see it's hundreds of things. There's themes and sub-themes, so it's very
01:04hard and difficult for me to pull out one thing about it, outside of the fact that
01:12I think that when people hear it's the story of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, that's
01:17kind of like a bit of a hat-trick, because it's the story of so many great
01:22artists, and it's one big journey in that, you know, as far as some of the
01:29greatest artists of our time. And Jimmy and Dre are just the prism that we're
01:33viewing it through, and ultimately it is their story, but I think that's
01:38what's probably very hard to describe for people or to process. It's not like a
01:46traditional biography where it's about Dre and Jimmy. It just goes off into so
01:50many different tributaries, and you know, if you love Nine Inch Nails and
01:54Trent Reznor, it definitely feels like there's a documentary on Nine Inch Nails
01:59and Trent Reznor in there. If you love Tupac, there's a documentary on Tupac in
02:03there, so it's a lot more ambitious than just two men, if that makes any sense, you
02:09know? Right. And I'm still trying to figure it out myself.
02:12Yeah. Well, one of the things, you know, the genius behind Dre and Jimmy is that
02:19they're able to not just sell music but sell culture. Yes. Do you think that the
02:25culture of the past 30 years defined them or did they define the culture? That's a
02:32great question. You know, and looking back, I think that they helped define the
02:38culture because whatever artists they were working with, for instance, when Dre
02:42started working with Snoop, Dre was just left ruthless and had nothing. He didn't,
02:49and he was used to working with whether it was Ice Cube or Eazy-E or the DOC, you
02:55know, like great artists, and he gets out of his ruthless situation and he doesn't
03:00have any, anyone to work with. Then he discovers Snoop and then he becomes what Snoop is. He
03:08was, you know, right off the streets, crack dealing, gang banging, and not that that
03:15wasn't anything new in hip-hop, but Snoop was something new, his point of view and
03:19his attitude and his personality, and Dre just morphed into that. And I think that's a lot
03:25of what Jimmy and Dre do is, you know, when you look at any of the artists in Interscope
03:30or Death Row at the time or Aftermath when Eminem came along, here's this crazy kid from
03:35Detroit saying these crazy things. To me, he's like Lenny Bruce. He's the Lenny Bruce of hip-hop.
03:42And he's so dynamic, such a genius with his words and his insight and the way he's, you
03:47know, kind of head-fucking you, you know. Those guys just got behind it. So I think they were
03:55always pushing and creating, you know, what we, you know, what culture is and was at the
04:01time, you know. I don't think they were living by like, oh, this is what's hot and we should
04:05follow that, you know, ever, you know. Doesn't feel like it to me, you know.
04:09Yeah, yeah. I heard in an interview that you said that Fuck the Police by N.W.A. put
04:17punk rock out of business. Can you explain that?
04:22I mean, I genuinely felt when you look back and you take the sonic genius of Dre, you know,
04:30like when you hear a Dre track, especially then when you were surprised by it, because
04:37now we know what Dre's capable of. It's like going to the Cinerama Dome. It's like panoramic.
04:44It's very visual. Then you have the lyrics and the power of Ice Cube and Eazy-E and Wren
04:50saying what they're saying and that hook. And you're like, it doesn't get more punk rock
04:55than that. It really doesn't. And what else can you say, you know, and how much more powerful
05:03can it be? The way that thing, it would just hit you. The sonics of it were, you know, I
05:13never heard anything like that before. But the power of the way Ice Cube sounded on that
05:17track and the power of that hook and the power of the way Eazy-E sounded and what they were
05:22saying, I don't know how punk rock would be able to come back after that because it really
05:29did. It just did. That is the consummate punk rock song, you know, and done so well. The
05:34reason why I said that as well is that punk rock like early hip hop, the fidelity wasn't
05:41necessarily there. It was always kind of noisy and murky. And that's part of the beauty of
05:46punk rock and hip hop. Then you have Dre and now the fidelity, it sounds like a rock album.
05:51It sounds like Pink Floyd or, is that the door knocking? Someone knocking at the door
05:56in the middle of the interview? No. You know, it just, I think that, I think the fidelity
06:00had a lot to do with it. It sounded like a great heavy metal, like produced highly, you
06:07know, am I going on too much about this? And that's what Jimmy recognized. That's what
06:11Jimmy Iovine recognized about the, about the Dre's album, The Chronic, right? That this guy
06:17was a master genius producer. Yeah. He was able to deliver the Sonics. Yeah. And that's
06:23what people forget about Dre is that he started off a world-class DJ. And a DJ is someone who's
06:30a great seducer because you're trying to get everyone to dance. You're trying to get everyone
06:33to move. He comes from a dance romance group in the world-class record crew. So he's a master
06:39seducer on top of just being a sonic wonder. And so when you listen to Fuck the Police, that's
06:44a DJ who comes from dance romance music with that hardcore message. And it's getting to you
06:52in ways that I think other music at the time just wasn't, you know?
06:55It's definitely zeitgeist. You know, telling the stories of Dre and Jimmy, it's ultimately
07:01a success story. How do you define their success? I think this, we were talking before about
07:08part four. Ultimately, you know, this, this documentary, you know, ends up being a success
07:15story. But, you know, personally, after like kind of experiencing what they've experienced
07:22in putting together this film, like what's their, what's their greatest success?
07:26Their greatest success to me is their partnership and how long it's endured and the fact that
07:31they respect one another and appreciate the gift the other one has. There's no envy there.
07:39Like, I wish I, I wish I, you know, could do what he did or does. And, you know, and,
07:44you know,
07:45first of all, you know, a white Italian guy from Red Hook, Brooklyn and black guy from Compton
07:50to be in this 20 year relationship and go through the madness they went through in the 90s
07:55because it wasn't pretty, a lot of that stuff. We forget, or some of us don't. And with Death
08:00Row and Tupac and, you know, when the Biggie and the East Coast, West Coast thing happened.
08:05For them, I think the greatest success and all that is that they still are partners and not
08:13only live through all that music, highs and lows, but created this incredible company, you know,
08:21beats with the headphones and, and sold to Apple and they're, and they're still together, you know,
08:26and they're still rocking. So that's unheard of, you know, virtually unheard of to have partners from
08:34that disparate, you know, of a background, of backgrounds remain together and still going strong as they are right now.
08:41You never know. These guys, I don't know what, they're still, they're still active.
08:46So you never know what, what they're going to come up with next, you know?
08:49Yeah. Was it harder to work on the, the parts of the documentary that you had personal involvement with?
08:56Or was it harder to kind of get into Jimmy's life, which kind of, a lot of that happened before
09:02you were, you were born?
09:04I think it was, uh, for, for me to get into Jimmy's life, you know, especially stuff that I wasn't
09:10aware of
09:10that was, that happened when I was, before I was born, when I was a toddler or whatever, like,
09:15whether it was, uh, the John Lennon stuff or the Bruce Springsteen stuff, Patty Smith, who I wasn't really hip
09:22on before this.
09:23It actually was easier to do that stuff because, you know, you're, it's new, it's fresh.
09:28And, and it's, um, and so it, that was a simpler, uh, task as a filmmaker to, um, like the
09:35Born to Run sessions.
09:37That was exciting for me.
09:38I, I've, I've heard the album and everything, but I wasn't really hip on all of one into it or
09:43Bruce's background.
09:45I think the more difficult thing for me was getting into, um, uh, the nineties, um, especially when it came
09:52to the, the gangster rap
09:53and the guys I knew, um, and, you know, easy E and Tupac and, and when things went left, you
10:01know, I think, and, and losing those guys and not,
10:04not realizing how close to home that was going to hit for me. So that was, that was a lot
10:08more difficult.
10:09Painting the picture of Tupac in this film was way more challenging than doing anything from Jimmy's side in the
10:16seventies or eighties or whatever.
10:18Um, because it was so personal, you know,
10:20you said before that, um, you know, there are different, there are different perceptions and different forms of the truth.
10:27So when you had to, you know, uh, when you had to do that episode three, which was primarily about
10:33Tupac,
10:34um, was it, was it fundamentally your truth that you were getting through or, you know, was this something that
10:40was like, like, how did you get to that truth?
10:44Well, you know, uh, quite frankly, um, many, many drafts of scenes.
10:50If I showed you scenes from a year ago or six months ago or three months, it completely different than
10:55what ended up in the film.
10:57So it's just like taking like a script. People talk about doing multiple drafts or five or six drafts.
11:02I've, I've been involved in, you know, uh, even scene work with actors where you do different versions of the
11:08scene.
11:08I've never been involved in something where let's Tupac, for instance.
11:14Um, there were probably 30 different versions of, of him once he got out of jail and signed a death,
11:22death row.
11:23So there was so many drafts and I would take them, I would take it around.
11:27What I did with the making of this documentary while making it was when we had what I thought was
11:31like a great scene,
11:33I would take it and show it in rooms of people, white, black, you know, doesn't matter where you're from,
11:38you know, 14, 80 years old.
11:41You know, I would really try to get a gauge on what people were feeling and then try to find,
11:45I knew that there were versions of the truth.
11:49And then I was just trying to find that one truth that everyone could understand.
11:55That was the, and I say that I've said that quite a bit is in the editing room.
11:59We have one major rule of, if grandma doesn't understand it, then the story's got to go.
12:04So it doesn't, you know, cause you don't know if grandma knows Tom Petty or Snoop Dogg, you can't take
12:10for granted that grandma knows these people.
12:13And I, I look at myself like that. I'm a lame man. I'm still a Midwest boy at heart.
12:17You know, I'm not that sophisticated. The story needs to transcend the genre and the artist.
12:23And so with Tupac, I was sensitive to like, uh, all of that, you know?
12:28How important was it for you to, um, bring, uh, Dee Barnes' story into the, into the documentary?
12:35Bringing Dee Barnes into the documentary period was number one for me, you know?
12:41Um, not just, uh, because of the awful thing that happened between her and Dre, but more importantly, I grew
12:49up on Dee Barnes.
12:51She had a show called Pump It Up. It was like the West Coast version of Yo! MTV Refs.
12:55And she was a part of the culture. She was like a little sister to, um, the guys at the
13:01time in WA.
13:02She was around on the scene. She had a hip hop group, uh, called Body and Soul.
13:07And, um, she just was one of those cultural figures that was around.
13:11So it was important for me, especially with my background.
13:15Um, you know, I do consider myself a feminist if there's a such thing as a male feminist.
13:20I, I, I, so that was number one for me is that not because of what was omitted from Straight
13:27Outta Compton.
13:28What I want to make clear here is we shot all this stuff.
13:32Dre's coming, you know, clean with this and kind of this cathartic moment about the incident and his apology.
13:39A year and change before Straight Outta Compton came out and the controversy reared its head up again.
13:46So this was something going in three and a half, actually four years ago, that, uh, I knew for certain
13:51we were doing, you know.
13:53And then, and then it imploded again with Straight Outta Compton.
13:56And, and to have to sit on that apology and to have to sit on that, uh, him, you know,
14:02um, actually talking about it for the first time was, was painful.
14:06But, you know, it is what it is, you know.
14:08So Dee Barnes to me was, um, I wasn't going to do it if we didn't do it, do it
14:14with, if she wasn't involved.
14:15And like I said, it wasn't just about the awful incident.
14:18It was about she would, you know, you know, um, she was a part of the culture, period, you know.
14:24A huge part of the culture, you know.
14:26Yeah. Are you aware of the fact that she called your documentary a masterpiece?
14:30I just saw that like a day ago and I was like, I got goosebumps, you know.
14:34That was a, that was a, you know, I was a, I just, I'm speechless, you know.
14:40Yeah. Yeah. Um, what, uh, what made you laugh the most out of all of the, uh, all the interviews
14:49that you did or what?
14:50Who made me laugh or what made me laugh?
14:52Yeah. Yeah. Who made you laugh the most?
14:55It's obvious. I think Snoop made me, Snoop made me laugh the most.
14:59Yeah. Tom Petty got me with some uppercuts.
15:01Tom Petty was just, I just, I don't know, something about Tom Petty.
15:05Yeah. It just kills me.
15:07Um, I'm thinking now there's so many of them in there.
15:10Yeah. Um, I laughed a lot.
15:13You can hear me laughing quite a bit.
15:16I tried to mix, mix it out. I laughed a lot.
15:18Jimmy would make me laugh a lot cause he's such a, he's such a character, you know.
15:22Yeah. He just, he'd say some things and we would, you know, he would, he would just,
15:26I laughed a lot during a lot of the interviews, you know.
15:29But I would say number one and, uh, one in, I don't know who's whatever, Tom Petty and Snoop,
15:34they share a lot in common.
15:36Yeah.
15:36They share a lot in common.
15:38Um, has Tom Petty gotten over the, uh, the Stevie Nicks situation?
15:45Jimmy wonders that.
15:46Yeah.
15:47I don't know, you know, he's still, he's still a little salty about it.
15:51Yeah.
15:51But he gets it, you know, and that's what I love about the, him in the film is like,
15:54he doesn't mention any words.
15:56Um, I think it's still a little painful when he thinks about it.
15:59But the one line I forgot to not, I forgot that we had, we didn't put in the film when
16:05Jimmy first started working with Tom, Tom Petty and heard those songs.
16:11And he says, you know, we're going to become millionaires, you know.
16:14And then Jimmy says to him after he took the song, Hey, this will buy you a house.
16:19Uh huh.
16:20Um, there was a B side to that word.
16:22Tom, at the end of the story says, you know what?
16:24And it probably did buy me.
16:28So he got there.
16:29He got there.
16:30Yeah.
16:31Um, yeah.
16:33Uh, I, I wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, about kind of like the, the looking glass
16:39that we're through since all of these events have happened.
16:43Um, we have a Snoop Dogg being nominated for an Emmy for his work with Martha Stewart.
16:49I don't know if you know.
16:50Wow.
16:50I didn't know that.
16:50She was nominated yesterday.
16:52Snoop Dogg nominated for an Emmy.
16:54Yeah.
16:54We've got Eminem who's, you know, come out as being sober.
16:57Yeah.
16:58Um, you know, uh, Dr. Dre has kind of come on to the other side of like, you know, an
17:04adult life.
17:05And then we have politicians acting like gangsters.
17:08That's like completely just, we're through the looking glass.
17:11Yeah, we are.
17:12Um, in your experience, I mean, since you kind of lived this whole, uh, episode, uh, what
17:18do you think?
17:18Do you think our culture is in a place where we're at a, is this a result of what happened
17:24in the nineties or, um, where are we right now?
17:31I think where we are as a culture right now, it's hard for me to say this is that after
17:36eight years of Barack Obama, just by the virtue of the fact that he was black, there's this
17:41crazy reaction, you know, backlash, you know, there's, it's not a majority of America, but
17:48just enough that got, it's surreal because if you were to release the defiant ones in any
17:54other time, um, even though it's gotten incredible response, you know, it's a little confusing
18:01because you're like, what are we being defiant against right now?
18:05Because, because the president is so, uh, this president, I never refer to him as the
18:10president.
18:11This president is so freaking ill.
18:14You're like, I don't know what to, you know, I don't know what to make of it outside
18:20of the fact that, you know, it's too bad that, um, this still, this still really matters.
18:27I think it's a direct reaction of, I can only say what I've learned through this whole thing
18:33with, uh, this president is, it's kind of like when you were young in love and you got
18:38your heart broke, whether it was in junior high or high school or right out in college.
18:43And I didn't realize that so many people felt the same way that one feels when, if I can't
18:49have her, if I can't have them, I'd rather not, I'd rather they be dead.
18:54You know that feeling like, you know, a scorn lover has, I'd rather that person be dead than
18:59anyone else be with them.
19:01I didn't know that people felt that way about our country.
19:04That is so tribal that, uh, and I'll just be very crass right now, you know, I'd rather
19:11we not have a country than a nigger or a fucking woman be running this country.
19:15I'd rather the Russians have our country.
19:18I didn't know that it would, that that's how tribal it's gotten, you know?
19:22And it's, it's the same thing.
19:23It really is.
19:24It's the same thing that, you know, that a scorn lover feels, you know, if that makes any
19:29sense.
19:31So I'm completely discombobulated when it comes to that, you know?
19:35Like I said, through the looking glass.
19:37You have some-
19:38What is defiant now?
19:39Yeah.
19:40You have some footage of Tupac talking about Trump.
19:43That's amazing because I believe that was in 91, 92, 92.
19:48Mm-hmm.
19:49And the, what he's saying about, um, you're like, wow, nothing's changed.
19:55It's like, you can see this guy coming a mile away.
19:57It's, it's, he's been the same guy, you know?
19:59Trump.
20:00Yeah.
20:00You know?
20:02Uh, but if I can't have her, no one will.
20:07Um, if you could hand deliver this film to one person, who would you want to give it
20:12to?
20:13Hand deliver it to one person?
20:15Yeah.
20:15Yeah.
20:16Is there somebody who you would like to see this film?
20:21You ask some great ass questions, I tell you what.
20:24No, you know, I would say that I've read a few things that were interesting where they,
20:31some journalists said, or some people on social media, there was this, it was interesting
20:36to me.
20:37They said, said that, um, this is like a, a baby boomers or the X generations message
20:45to the millennials, this film.
20:46Mm-hmm.
20:47And I was like, and someone's like, it's not about baby boomers or this, that, and the
20:51other, and it's, it's X generation, but I guess they weren't factoring in Jimmy.
20:55Um, and I said, that's not why.
20:57Um, but I think that in, in hearing that I go, oh, that's interesting.
21:01I think it is important for, I don't like to use the word millennials.
21:05Um, but I think it's important for this great new generation probably to watch it more
21:12than anybody because, you know, it, it, that's a time where we had the last of the great,
21:19like, large concentration of great artists, you know, and a system in place to support
21:25a great artist, you know?
21:26Yeah.
21:26So it's not like a thumbing a nose at this new generation.
21:29It's like, hey, look, look at what, what it took and what it was.
21:32And, and it's up to you guys now to, to, to carry that torch, you know, maybe, and get
21:38back to some of those fundamentals, you know?
21:40Mm-hmm.
21:41So it wouldn't be one person.
21:42Mm-hmm.
21:42Yeah.
21:43It would be the millennials.
21:44Yeah.
21:44And, uh.
21:46But I'm not saying fuck you to the millennials at all.
21:48I don't have a chip on my shoulder about the millennials or none of that shit.
21:52Just learn how to be an, an innovator and a levitator.
21:55Yeah.
21:56The future is yours.
22:00Alan Hughes, thank you so much for being with us today.
22:02Can I shake your hand?
22:03Yes, you can.
22:04That's like the political thing.
22:07Thank you, Mariah.
22:08Bye, guys.
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