CATCH A FIRE: An Interview with Derek Luke

October 23, 2006

Having made his film debut by playing the title character of real-life Antwone Fisher, Derek Luke learned in the beginning of his career the essence of getting involved with the character he plays. Since then, Luke has compiled an assortment of leading and supporting roles such as "Biker Boys", "Pieces of April", "Friday Night Lights" and most recently "Glory Road", where he played another real life character as such with FNL. Each role is different and Luke makes a point to know the real person. For his latest role, Luke once again will probably play the role of a lifetime, as he portrays freedom fighter Patrick Chamusso in "Catch a Fire". Chamusso is a charming and loving husband to wife Precious (Bonnie Henna) and father to young daughters. He works as a foreman at a oil refinery. When he's captured by the police security branch because he's suspected of being a member of an anti-apartheid group, Chamusso takes action into his own hands when his dignity is taken away and his family is hurt. In speaking with blackfilm.com, Luke goes his role, learning the language, facing racism and being in South Africa.

How did this role come to you?

Derek Luke: I the role from my agents and they are very convincing because they started the conversation very high. "Oh, these people are very, very interested in you, but they want to see you and that means audition." In the audition process, either you light it up or you become protective. Anyway, they sent me the script, and I just think that it's a piece of art, but then I contemplate it because then I thought I would be repeating myself with Antwone Fisher because I was so emotional and I wanted to break away from doing so-so emotional and then I thought about it and I talked to people that's not in the industry and they said, "Derek, this is a great thing." I always wanted to go to South Africa, so the process was basically auditioning and realizing that what makes this story different than Steven Biko and Nelson Mandela is that this is a story of an ordinary South African man which necessarily had not been told yet and that's why I took and played the role. It wasn't about the president or the hero, Steven Biko. This was an ordinary foot soldier, a township man.

How much practice did you have with the language?

DL: As soon as I got there, I went looking for the dialogue coach, but I went there six weeks prior, during preproduction, she (Fiona Ramsey) told me that she trained Don Cheadle for ‘Hotel Rwanda". She said that Don had trained prior before he came to Rwanda and that messed him up when he first started, so she said to don't learn from anybody in the states, and I was like, "Are you serious? This is a major movie where I have to learn South African and you want me to learn when I get over there?" So I had to and I had a dialogue coach and meshing with the people that helped.

What part as an African American and knowing about apartheid did you take into the movie as you played Patrick's role?

DL: The first act of the film was called the Phillip Noyce part because as a young African American guy, it was hard not to react to a system that was coming against you. It was a total different generation. I was more excited about the second half when Patrick made that other decision and he says, "Well Derek, you can't have the second act without the first literally. You have to show those balances and that's the difference with oppression. You oppressed." So, the only thing I thought I brought was more in the second act when it was time to so-called revenge or reverse or take advantage of the situation; just bring the new generation vibe to it in a sense of revolutionary act.

What did you think you knew about South Africa before going over there? How did it change for you after playing Patrick?

DL: Well, I thought that when I got to South Africa, I thought there would be horses and stuff, more rural area. When I got to Johannesburg, it was like New York and at the same time, Busta Rhymes and 50 Cent had a concert over there. I heard from the people that went to the concert said that Busta and 50 had mentioned that they had never been to South Africa, and they were like, "Oh my gosh, you guys are like New Yorkers!" and it was a revelation for them as well.

What about politically?

DL: I never had to go through that. I never had to experience what South Africans had to experience. I grew up on the other side of it, after the fight. When you go to South Africa, you see front and center the psychological damage of apartheid. I felt I was living the civil rights movement at that time because I would walk through the mall with my wife and people would blatantly turn their heads. It was almost as if I were in the South. My wife is Mexican-Indian, but in South Africa, there are sections. There's colored, there's Black, and there's White, and colored is a lighter skin, and dark is dark, black is black, and white is white. To be with her in South Africa was big.

What did they do?

DL: I first asked my wife could she handle it and I said, "Babe, we're not in the states, we're in another country and we need to aware and conscious that we may be Americans but we're in a different place".

How you saying that the people who staring at you were Blacks or Whites or both?

DL: They were both, but the majority that turned their heads were the Whites. The Blacks were more like surprised. I brought my wife to the townships and the guys were like, "White lady, White lady! We love you, White lady!" My wife was like, "I'm not White, I'm Mexican." I said, "Babe, you're in Africa. Anybody that is lighter than them is white, so hey" and then the situation is totally different.

How was working with Tim Robbins being that you guys were the only Americans in the film? Did you talk about in South Africa and seeing what the people have gone through and are still going through?

DL: I think it was hard for both of us. He's a native New Yorker and I'm from Jersey and what was hard was that it was the first time and most times we would meet, it was almost like we were bumping our backs into each other because the environment was so different. He have never been to Africa and neither had I and what we had in common was as teammates, we were Americans and his technical advisors were literally torturers during the struggle and my technical advisors were literally people who mirrored Patrick's life. Tim would go hang out with his guys and I would go hang out with mine and we would come back and we would talk and it would be so heavy. We needed to talk to each other. We needed to vent. "Can you believe this? How are you going to play this?" It gave us more of a closeness in our relationship even though we had to do our different jobs.

What was the atmosphere like on the set with people from different sides who obviously came together for this film?

DL: You know what, that's a good point because that's what makes Patrick's message so prominent. The other side of it is that people are so ghost like and have the psychological damage to where you walk around with your precious smiling, like nothing has happened, so there's like 2 sides of the story.

Blacks and Whites?

DL: Mostly the Blacks, but sometimes it felt like very-childlike, like they were not aware.

You probably saw the anger and the hate from some people.

DL: To close in on this, one of the most depressing things about playing Patrick in South Africa as a country and being that it's a majority black country was their leadership. The most powerful thing in their country is their leadership, but every individual South African is taught to be a leader because they talk about forgiveness and what was extraordinary for me was that me coming from here (the United States) is that we have everything going on, but emotionally and psychologically, they had to, at this point because I didn't grow up in the civil rights movement, face something different. Patrick now is teaching his kids about opportunity to where they haven't seen this film yet, his orphanage. It's still a dream to them because during the struggle, it was like the iron curtain was up. They had no communication with the other states. Now they see MTV and BET. Now you go see Patrick, who lives 4-5 hours outside of Johannesburg and you get in the bush and you don't hear anything and then all of a sudden, you hear Jay-Z and Tupac being played. So you have one generation where all they see is, not their parent's side, but the US culture. As far as things being passed down, I think South Africa is doing an amazing job by not diluting their kids with fear and their past history. Some will teach it, but some are really privileged because they're growing up free, and free is not always a legal thing because when the slaves were free in 1864, if free meant mental and physical, then we would have been in a totally different place automatically. I think they are teaching freedom in a different way over there.

Can you talk about working with Bonnie (Henna)? Not only is she an actress from South Africa, but she also has experience apartheid. Were you able to get some insight from her as to what you were getting yourself into?

DL: Bonnie is easy on the eyes. She's easy to do a scene with her and sometimes she would challenge me about what I really know about South Africa, whether I was putting on a show, was this the Hollywood part of me. She and I got into specifically love taps like with Bonnie, I had to prove myself and I understand why. I felt I had to prove myself to a lot of South Africans.

What did you learn from Phillip (Noyce) as a director?

DL: Passion, heart, integrity. He's an Australian man doing a South African film with no game whatsoever. Everything was against him. The studio questioned why he wanted to make a film about racism. I saw that it was ok to be a humanitarian in your work and everybody may not agree but as long as you're happy, you're fulfilled; so that's what I got from Phillip.

When you take a role like this as well as Antwone Fisher and then you're able to balance it out with some commercial films, what do think it does for you as an actor as far as looking for the roles you are looking to do?

DL: People say a lot right now. I have big dreams, and it was humbling because I thought I was repeating myself with Antwone Fisher, but people were like, "Derek, no way." I think everybody has a message on their heart and if you yield to it, it will take you to a place where you need to go.

What's your next, "Definite, Maybe" about?

DL: It centers on a character played by Reynolds and his daughter, Abigail Breslin, the girl who was in "Little Miss Sunshine" and her parents are going through a divorce, and he goes back in history when he was a campaign manager for the Clinton administration. So you have all these relationships, me as his best friend, and Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, and Kevin Kline, and all these people in his life. It's a romantic comedy around the Clinton administration.

As a Black actor in the business, how hard is it for you to get roles?

DL: I'm a fighter. I'm a dreamer. I wouldn't be in any of these roles if I didn't believe in it. I have to believe that no matter how much space these stories are, personally that was the thing for me. Derek, if you leave Jersey, there has to be opportunity. If I stay here, what am I saying? I gotta believe and that's the key word, I gotta believe that there has to be a stronger force than color. I think there are new opportunities. There's Terrence Howard. There's Jamie Foxx. The marketplace is different. Just the way South Africa is changing, I think more than Hollywood is changing, people are changing. More people are writing their own stories and becoming more proactive to their careers. Acting can be a lazy profession because globally and generationally the responsibility changes. Clarke Gable and those guys had a certain responsibility. With Sidney Poitier, the focus was more on talent. In this generation now, we have to work out, look good. It's different now.

CATCH A FIRE opens on October 27, 2006