By Wilson Morales

How much singing did you actually do in the film?

Boris Kodjoe: I’m a singer. I had a record deal early in my life and they offered me the movie, but they said that I had to come in and sing because they needed a singer. So I came in and sang for them and they liked it and was given the movie. I’m in the booth and first of all, I’m from Germany and I had never heard a gospel in my life. Didn’t know anything about Gospel, or about Southern Baptist churches and I’m in the booth singing this “You’re so good” song and Yolonda Adams walks in, and Donnie McClurklin walks in, and Nona Gaye walks in, and after an hour, I decided to focus in on the acting part.

Is there any aspect of your life that you could relate this film with? Did your wife (Nicole Ari Parker) help you in learning gospel music?

BK: I had to study acting to basically educate myself. Nicole was about 300 pounds at the time and about to deliver at the time. Actually she pushed me to do the film because I wanted to at home with her, but she said that I had to do this film.

So how did you connect to understand the nuances of the Southern Baptist churches?

BK: I had to study and educate myself. I watched film. I watched and went to performances. I talked to Donnie, Yolanda, and Fred Hammond, and these all these incredibly talented people. I went back and researched the history of gospel; where it came from, slavery times, communicating with each other without their master knowing what they are saying, and that gospel artists view themselves differently. Secular artists see themselves with performance; they are more self involved, presentational. I had to do a lot of work because it’s completely foreign to me. I grew up in Germany and in central Europe, people don’t acknowledge their faith. They are very private about their faith. They are very introverted, it’s very intimate to us, so we don’t go on award shows we praise the lord, we don’t go on award shows and thank God; we don’t go when we do sports competition and afterwards when journalists asks us, “So, how’d you do it?” and say, God. That’s not how we speak over there because we share everything else so why not believe in our faith. When I came here 10 years ago, that was one of the first impressions that I had and it was amazing to me that people, especially Black people, and I’m saying black because African-American doesn’t fit with me because I’m not African American so I say black. I love the fact that we, as black people, carry our faith with us. We share it and embrace it and love it and talk about it because we talk about everything else and why not that and that was the first impression that I had that really touched me. As part of my relationship with my wife and my daughter, and we share everything and talk about everything. This movie came at a time, and I don’t believe in coincidences, and everything happens for a reason. When you meet someone, it happens for a reason. When you have a purpose in life, the way I met my wife, and the way the script fell into my hands, happened for a reason. It was a very spiritual and emotional time for me. My wife being pregnant and me having the anxiety of not being there when the baby was born; and my father who hadn’t visited me in the states ever showed up three days after my daughter was born and he came down to the set and he had never seen me work and I was shooting a scene at the gravesite talking to my dad, and it became personal because there were things that I told him that I needed to tell him. It was very emotional but like I said it all happened for a reason because I think it made me a better actor, a better man, and a better person.

What was like acting opposite veteran actors and gospel singers?

BK: I know I can act and it doesn’t matter where you come from. All that matters is what you do because Anthony Hopkins told me that all that Shakespearian stuff is full of shit, and those were his words. He said that when you talk about acting and how personal it is and how it has to come from the inside and you have to associate and you have to do the other stuff in order to portray certain things, that’s a crock of shit, he said, because at the end of the day, the people watching you through a screen and the camera on you, it’s very exterior. Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It’s very exterior. He can think about walking his dog in the park and eating an ice cream and play a scene where his daughter just died. Denzel Washington, one of our beloved actors of all time, is a very exterior actor. When you watch his films, there are certain things that he does that he does over and over that just work. He might think about something completely different at the time than what you think he’s thinking about. I was never intimidated by the actors, but inspired. I was ready to go and was happy to go and have great respect for all of them and they inspire me to make me better.

What was like acting opposite veteran actors and gospel singers?

BK: I know I can act and it doesn’t matter where you come from. All that matters is what you do because Anthony Hopkins told me that all that Shakespearian stuff is full of shit, and those were his words. He said that when you talk about acting and how personal it is and how it has to come from the inside and you have to associate and you have to do the other stuff in order to portray certain things, that’s a crock of shit, he said, because at the end of the day, the people watching you through a screen and the camera on you, it’s very exterior. Some of the best actors in the world are very exterior actors, Anthony Hopkins being one of them. He knows exactly how to turn his face to get a certain expression. He knows exactly what to do with eyes, and with his voice. It’s very exterior. He can think about walking his dog in the park and eating an ice cream and play a scene where his daughter just died. Denzel Washington, one of our beloved actors of all time, is a very exterior actor. When you watch his films, there are certain things that he does that he does over and over that just work. He might think about something completely different at the time than what you think he’s thinking about. I was never intimidated by the actors, but inspired. I was ready to go and was happy to go and have great respect for all of them and they inspire me to make me better.

This film deals with the parent-child relationship and can you talk about what you experienced and are experiencing now as a father?

BK: Good question. Unfortunately, I watched my father and decided to be the exact opposite.

In what way?

BK: My parents split up when I was six and I think the most important thing about a father is to show up and there were a lot of problems. He couldn’t pick me up. He couldn’t be there. Disappointment was huge. It has an affect on you in the way you grow up and the way you see yourself and it’s a lot of overcome as a youngster. There was a certain point in my life where I had to decide that I was going to take my future and Nicole’s and not wallow in what happened to me because when you do that, you just keep repeating what’s been happening and at some point you have to make a choice. I made a choice of who I was going to be. I was going to be successful and happy and confident and whatever else and once I made that choice, I arrange our relationship in a place where I can love and respect my father, but I didn’t have any expectations; and with my daughter, I’m a sucker. She just looks at me a I just melt. I’ll give her my life. I’ll give her everything. I’ll teach her independence. I’ll teach her love. I’ll her passion and whatever I deemed important. Hopefully, she’ll grow up a self-thinking, authority-question, independent, strong, loving woman. Sometimes in the black culture, being raised as an independent woman is misconstrued as someone who doesn’t need a man. I think that’s wrong. I think we all need someone. I think that women need men and that men need women and we need each other and that independence and meeting somebody is not mutually exclusive. You can be very independent, but admit to wanting somebody close to you and that’s what me and my wife have. We don’t need each other but we want to be with each other and I think it’s important to educate the kids with that. I think it’s important that they know that it’s okay to admit that I want you here because it doesn’t mean that I’m dependent on you. It just means that I want you here. That’s all it means and that’s how I’m going to raise my daughter. .

How did you go about in developing the character?

BK: I wanted it to be real. I wanted to be on point. I could identify with things he went through with his father. I wanted him to be affected by it. I wanted people to see and feel his pain. I wanted people to see and feel the conflict he had in coming back and dealing with his dad and that he had still not dealt with it. The defining point is when he goes to his gravesite and he really finds closure. He doesn’t find closure when he dies in the hospital; he finds it when he visits the grave and he lets him know what he needs to let him know and I wanted people to feel that. I didn’t want to take people to that point in the hospital yet because it would have been false. When he gets the call that his father is dying, it’s really a conflict of emotions. On the one hand, there’s someone close that is dying, and the emotion that you felt towards that person wasn’t that positive for at least 15 years. There’s guilt because you think about karma, and you think about God and all these things. There’s more conflict as opposed to “I missed you for a while”. I wanted people to know that the closure comes at the gravesite.

What’s the message you want us to get from the movie?

BK: Everybody goes through stuff. Everybody goes through obstacles and problems and issues and turn their backs on people that we are fond of and love just because we hurt; and everybody goes through that. I don’t care if you are religious or not and I think the message is that at the end of the day, everybody has to mature and everybody has to heal and mend their own injuries, emotional injuries, on their own pace. We can’t force someone to heal and we can’t force somebody to get better. You have to give them time to do so. The important fact is to do it. The very important message is that you have to live in the present and for the future. You can’t live in the past. Don’t ignore the past, but deal with it, on your own pace. Once you deal with it, you are free of it; and you are free to embrace your life and be a happy loving person because if you don’t, the past will come back to haunt and keep coming back to haunt you. It happens to all of us. We have relationships and know the exact outcome with that person because we don’t deal with ourselves and don’t deal with our issues and end up being attracted to the same person or the person is attracted to our energy. When we realize that, it’s important to handle that. Take our time and get over it so we can be our full selves. .

THE GOSPEL OPENS ON OCTOBER 7TH, 2005