Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, thank you for tuning in to Talk Easy.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Sam Vragoso on the inaugural episode of
Speaker 1: the podcast. We're excited to have celebrated actor Don Cheadle
Speaker 1: and looking at his I and dB, his filmography is
Speaker 1: really kind of astonishing. I'm not entirely sure how someone
Speaker 1: can play Bucky Swope and war Machine in the same lifetime,
Speaker 1: and yet here we are in conversation. He seemed particularly
Speaker 1: excited to talk about his directorial debut, Miles Ahead, in
Speaker 1: which he plays the legendary jazz musician Miles Davis to
Speaker 1: a t, the pain, the suffering, the untamable genius, the
Speaker 1: coke addiction. Cheatle like the chameleon he is, assumes the
Speaker 1: role of Davis damn near perfectly. On a technical note,
Speaker 1: we're going to try to do most of these interviews
Speaker 1: in person and not over the phone or by a skype.
Speaker 1: But sometimes when great opportunities like this one come our way,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it work. It's Don Cheatle. We're not
Speaker 1: going to say no to Don Cheatle. And also these
Speaker 1: conversations will tend to be a bit longer than we
Speaker 1: have here, So come back next Tuesday. For a sample
Speaker 1: of what that looks like. But before we get to
Speaker 1: the conversation, some honesty upfront. I don't have a sweeping
Speaker 1: introduction for you. I just don't. It's something I've been
Speaker 1: desperately trying to come up with for a few weeks. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, two minutes of audio that will convince you,
Speaker 1: whoever you are, wherever you are, to listen to this
Speaker 1: new podcast in this overly crowded sea of podcast But
Speaker 1: I admit I'm not a particular skilled salesman or swimmer
Speaker 1: for that matter. You know, what I've been coming back
Speaker 1: to for the last few days is Roger Ebert, who
Speaker 1: passed away three years ago this Monday. He was that
Speaker 1: rare individual who you aspired to be like, both as
Speaker 1: a writer and human being. For everyone that knew Roger,
Speaker 1: and many did, his absence has felt all the time,
Speaker 1: and not just on Fridays when you're secretly hoping his
Speaker 1: reviews of the latest movies would appear. What we're left
Speaker 1: with now is the writing he produced throughout his remarkable career,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of it. And in thinking about
Speaker 1: what I want this show to do and be for
Speaker 1: people listening, I can't help but come back to this
Speaker 1: passage that appears near the end of his memoir Life Itself.
Speaker 1: It reads, I believe that if at the end of
Speaker 1: it all, according to our abilities, we have done something
Speaker 1: to make others a little happier and something to make
Speaker 1: ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we
Speaker 1: can do to make others less happy as a crime.
Speaker 1: To make ourselves happy is where all crimes starts. We
Speaker 1: must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true,
Speaker 1: no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances, we
Speaker 1: must try, all right, Roger, let me try to do that.
Speaker 1: There's that great John Lennon Lyne where he says, you know,
Speaker 1: every time you try to put your finger on it,
Speaker 1: it slips away. And that's when he's talking about like
Speaker 1: what what what makes People were asking him what makes
Speaker 1: your music great? What makes you a genius? And your
Speaker 1: film does a great job of not trying to explain
Speaker 1: it away. Yeah. I really just wanted to and not
Speaker 1: just wanted to, but uh felt like I had been
Speaker 1: given the marching orders to not do it the same,
Speaker 1: you know, do what Myles said to do. In the
Speaker 1: way Miles approached his music always trying to find another
Speaker 1: way to express himself. So I wanted to create something
Speaker 1: that felt like a creation, that felt like a composition.
Speaker 1: Uh and always tumbling forward, and and and and trying
Speaker 1: to move towards something else. Uh And and create a
Speaker 1: narrative that would allow me to use all the different
Speaker 1: music that he dealt with and created and was a
Speaker 1: part of actually pushing forward, and just have it all
Speaker 1: be an expression of that kind of creativity. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a great there's a great line. They always hear about him,
Speaker 1: and you know, I changed music five or six times,
Speaker 1: he like casually brings up. But in the movie, there's
Speaker 1: that part where he says I didn't know what else
Speaker 1: to say, which is, yeah, some raw honesty. And I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I mean, you have you felt that way before?
Speaker 1: I think you know, any creative person has felt that
Speaker 1: way where they wonder what it is. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very nebulous thing, you know, and it's it's not
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I used to love to
Speaker 1: just wash the dishes, because I've washed the dishes. They
Speaker 1: were dirty, they were cleaned, they were drying. It would
Speaker 1: be concrete, it was definitive, and it's clear when it's
Speaker 1: when it's something that's really hard to get a handle
Speaker 1: on you you're not sure what it is, and you're
Speaker 1: not sure where you are sometimes and what it is
Speaker 1: you're even what you're even in pursuit of. So I
Speaker 1: think he kind of found himself in that place during
Speaker 1: this period of time, and he was also exhausted mentally, physically, spiritually,
Speaker 1: all every way um and was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to come back or if he was even going
Speaker 1: to come back. You know, I don't think that a
Speaker 1: lock necessarily what have you been in pursuit of? I
Speaker 1: think the way to express yourself through you know, if
Speaker 1: that's what you are, is if you're a storyteller, and
Speaker 1: you know, that's basically what I feel like. I am
Speaker 1: always some aspect of it, whether I'm the actor in
Speaker 1: front of the camera attempting to fulfill and tell someone
Speaker 1: else a story, or if I'm a writer and I'm
Speaker 1: creating the story, or I'm a director and I'm attempting
Speaker 1: to guide the story and shepherd the story in a way.
Speaker 1: Every way into it is still about being a storyteller
Speaker 1: for me. So it's often about what stories are am
Speaker 1: I trying to tell? And what is the impact that
Speaker 1: you want to have with your art. You know. I
Speaker 1: think if you're a doctor, you can tell yourself a
Speaker 1: story that's much clearer about how you're what you're doing
Speaker 1: for the world, and what you're doing with your expertise
Speaker 1: and what you study to do. Man, if you're an artist,
Speaker 1: it's bill it's somewhat nebulous and hard. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's hard to define. Yeah, it's always a bit unclear,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, And you're always in pursuit of
Speaker 1: something and trying to figure out what the destination is.
Speaker 1: And I think that's another amazing thing for me about
Speaker 1: Miles is that that was the entire destination ultimately to
Speaker 1: keep looking and to keep you know, trying to reinvent
Speaker 1: and refigure out what to say. You know, right before
Speaker 1: he died he was making music with prints, so you know,
Speaker 1: it clearly demonstrates someone who was always trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to say the thing that I'm trying the
Speaker 1: next thing I'm trying to say with the next people
Speaker 1: who are trying to say it. I think his versatility
Speaker 1: was one of his strongest attributes, and I think you
Speaker 1: have a lot of that. I mean, this is your
Speaker 1: first time directing a movie. I'm interested because of you
Speaker 1: played music throughout your childhood, right, and then in high
Speaker 1: school when I started playing. Yeah, you started playing in childhood.
Speaker 1: Direct I started playing sex in elementary school all through
Speaker 1: high school, and then I kind of shifted into acting
Speaker 1: and then came back and about horn death. I graduated
Speaker 1: from college, I started playing again. It was I never
Speaker 1: fully put it down, and now it's great because I
Speaker 1: have this other instrument to torture myself with the trumpets.
Speaker 1: That's what we need in our lives. It's just more
Speaker 1: things to torture ourselves with. Yeah, just some more angst,
Speaker 1: yea more angst. I mentioned all that just because Davis
Speaker 1: is clearly someone that has is nearing tear to your
Speaker 1: heart and has meant a lot to you, as he's
Speaker 1: meant a lot to many people. And so I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: when you're on set, is there a moment on your
Speaker 1: first movie, writing it, acting, directing all of this coming
Speaker 1: together where you think, holy shit, can I can I
Speaker 1: do this? Is this going to work out? Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: There was nothing but that. Even even during I mean
Speaker 1: what you're saying, there was never a moment where doubt
Speaker 1: was not in the sidecar. There was never a moment
Speaker 1: of anything approximating pure confidence, not even close to that,
Speaker 1: and just the opposite. In fact, m my wife came
Speaker 1: to down to the set halfway through the shooting of it.
Speaker 1: After you know, she came together at the beginning, she
Speaker 1: went back home. She came back in the middle to
Speaker 1: visit me and said, you can't do this anymore. I
Speaker 1: had lost weight, I was you know, I was stressed out.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sleeping like this isn't no and pull the
Speaker 1: plugs and we can't pull the plugs. But she was
Speaker 1: very concerned and I and it was all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stress. There was never being able to rest
Speaker 1: or or or relax. And I was also doing something
Speaker 1: that I was I knew that was potentially at risk
Speaker 1: and not safe and uncomfortable and in an unknown place.
Speaker 1: So there was just there was just no ability to
Speaker 1: relax in a way. Do you think the best art
Speaker 1: comes from that place though, where there's no no part
Speaker 1: to relax, Well, I think it's hard to surf on glass.
Speaker 1: So maybe the greater the stress, the greater potential for
Speaker 1: the you know, opposite and equal reaction from that, which
Speaker 1: is some release and creativity. I don't know. People go, well,
Speaker 1: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I'm I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that the doctors have proven it stress, So I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true. What does it kill you makes
Speaker 1: you stronger? Know what it hasn't killed you yet? Is
Speaker 1: all that that means? Are you expecting your art to kill?
Speaker 1: I know, if I if I see that on the horizon,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go into the plumbing or something. I'll just
Speaker 1: that's done. I don't I don't know. If I can
Speaker 1: see you being a plumber, that's fine. You wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to see me being a plumber. And that's what would
Speaker 1: be the great part about it. That's only the people
Speaker 1: whose homes I was in under their thinks would have
Speaker 1: to see me be a plumber, and I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: out in front of people, which is the part of
Speaker 1: it that is, you know, you don't create this in
Speaker 1: your closet for yourself. You make this thing that you
Speaker 1: have all these you know, insecurities about sometimes and aren't
Speaker 1: sure and it's the best that you think you can do,
Speaker 1: and then you have to put it out there. You
Speaker 1: don't have to, but that's what we do is go
Speaker 1: and now here have it and take care of it
Speaker 1: or attack it or do it. It's not mine anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm giving it away. Uh. And that's I think hard
Speaker 1: to if you have an attachment to it still. Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a tricky thing to do, you know.
Speaker 1: So how do you know? But that you know, think
Speaker 1: about Miles. It's like he would do that and then
Speaker 1: walk away into the next thing, and and well it's
Speaker 1: hard into that thing as he just did the last thing.
Speaker 1: And it was always kind of charging forward and not
Speaker 1: looking back and sitting into those those those places of insecurity.
Speaker 1: He had them, but they didn't stop him and they
Speaker 1: didn't keep him from, you know, marching forward to the
Speaker 1: next one. So just aspirationally for me, it was something
Speaker 1: that I was hoping in some way to be able
Speaker 1: to internalize as I was in that process. What are
Speaker 1: your insecurities? What are my insecuty? Oh am I on accouch?
Speaker 1: Now do I have to pay you after I go
Speaker 1: through this one? But it's a cheap session. It's like
Speaker 1: one fifty all right, I'll skype it to you. Now.
Speaker 1: I think they're the same. I mean as as as
Speaker 1: someone who is public in some ways, not always, but
Speaker 1: in doing the thing that I am doing that I've
Speaker 1: made my livelihood and you know, support myself and my
Speaker 1: family with It's it's it's built on sand in many ways,
Speaker 1: because you don't get to dictate when your next ability
Speaker 1: to do that is, when your next opportunity to do
Speaker 1: that is. You know, every time we're laughed on a
Speaker 1: film or it's a TV show, we're unemployed, that's it.
Speaker 1: You're done. And you hope that there's some circumstances out
Speaker 1: there why someone reaches out and get it, offers you
Speaker 1: a job, or that you were able to create the
Speaker 1: work for yourself. But it's not, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not promised. So I think there is a for a
Speaker 1: lot of actors that I know, there's always that low underlying,
Speaker 1: you know, the rosies that at some point the business
Speaker 1: is going to say thank you and we're good and
Speaker 1: on your way, and no one lets you know when
Speaker 1: that's going to happen. It just happens that And and
Speaker 1: just the feeling of not being wanted anymore, well, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a little it's a little more important than that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the stakes are a little higher than just
Speaker 1: the sort of a popularity thing. Not being wanted quote
Speaker 1: unquote in our businesses, not being hired, is you know,
Speaker 1: onto your plumbing certificate. You know, it's like next thing,
Speaker 1: and and how do you what is the thing that
Speaker 1: you're attempting to do, to to to uh pivot and
Speaker 1: to uh reinvent and come up with another way potentially
Speaker 1: to make that happen. It's just like I said, it's
Speaker 1: like a house built on sand. You're really giving a
Speaker 1: lot of thought this plumbing thing, and I think I
Speaker 1: think it's a possibility. Yeah, I could do it. I'm
Speaker 1: good with like a crescent ranche. Oh that's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's good. I'm not sure most actors are. I'm I've
Speaker 1: been playing Blue and Green recently, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: his best song in my opinion, and I, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: keep are we in agreement about that? Yes? I mean
Speaker 1: I can't say best, but I can say there's none better, right,
Speaker 1: there's none better. Yeah. I have a very distinct memory
Speaker 1: of when I realized how great it was, and it
Speaker 1: was this is going to be oddly personal, but whatever.
Speaker 1: It was right after prom senior year prom, and I
Speaker 1: was driving away, dropped the girl off. I didn't get
Speaker 1: lucky that night, and and it was it was like
Speaker 1: the first time the song came on it. It It was
Speaker 1: the first time I realized, oh shit, high school's ending.
Speaker 1: Do you go to college now? I have to start
Speaker 1: a life away from home. And I always tell everyone,
Speaker 1: if you want to figure anything out in your life
Speaker 1: or you want to feel something, just go in your
Speaker 1: car or put your headphones on or wherever you can
Speaker 1: play music loudly and turn that song on. Yeah, it's else,
Speaker 1: and it does it. It does it every time. It is.
Speaker 1: It is something else. It's a very it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's my dad's favorite song. It's definitely one of my
Speaker 1: time four or five songs ever of any kind of music,
Speaker 1: any genre. Yeah. Have you had a moment with Miles'
Speaker 1: music that you particularly remember? Oh? Man, um, Yeah, so many.
Speaker 1: I remember finding my parents' album of Porgy Invest the
Speaker 1: elevens and markets Porgy Invest, and looking at that cover
Speaker 1: and wondered about that cover. First of all, this is
Speaker 1: so interesting. You know two figures in nextures, this man
Speaker 1: and this woman you can't know, just torso and he's
Speaker 1: got his trumpet in his lap and she's sort of
Speaker 1: got her hand on the trumpet and kind of pulling
Speaker 1: it toward her. And it was just beautiful album cover
Speaker 1: first of all, and then listening to that that was
Speaker 1: constructed in a way that I hadn't really heard music
Speaker 1: constructed before. You know, there's there's no piano, the really
Speaker 1: sort of unconventional voicing, with the these different instruments that
Speaker 1: were sort of orchestral instruments playing the chords under these
Speaker 1: trumpet sections, sole leads that were like based on Miles
Speaker 1: Davis solos. It was just this in his show music
Speaker 1: with this sort of jazz or or classical jazz application
Speaker 1: on it. It was just amazing. And I just would
Speaker 1: sit in in my parents' basement and listen to that
Speaker 1: album over and over and over again. And a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, when I was first getting into music
Speaker 1: was about was around that album. Did you get into
Speaker 1: Miles or really any music alone? Where you were it
Speaker 1: was at something that was something you did it by
Speaker 1: yourself or were you with friends when you listen to music?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, you know I was in a band.
Speaker 1: I was in the jazz band in high school and
Speaker 1: junior high school, and that was music that all of
Speaker 1: us listened to in the band. You know, it was
Speaker 1: the music quote unquote, it was the the route you know,
Speaker 1: from Whence sprung all of these other leaders that we
Speaker 1: listened to, including John Coltrane and you know, Chi Korea
Speaker 1: and Herbie Hancock, Wing Shorter, and it just goes on
Speaker 1: and on and on. That you know, UM became sort
Speaker 1: of the soundtrack for all of us because you were,
Speaker 1: you know, playing that music in band every day. You know,
Speaker 1: when I graduated from my school, I was, I was
Speaker 1: in bands. I was you know, inquirers. I was working
Speaker 1: in that way, um for potentially pursuing music as a
Speaker 1: as at least a study. It's not a career, UM,
Speaker 1: just heard of my studies in it. And I was
Speaker 1: also you know, acting some time and doing school plays
Speaker 1: and into drama, really into it. And I came up
Speaker 1: with musicians some of whom are you know, you know
Speaker 1: still doing the teachers now and performers now and recording
Speaker 1: artists and all of it. Who I saw the commitment level,
Speaker 1: and I saw what it took for them to really
Speaker 1: get the music and really understand it u you know,
Speaker 1: in a brain a metal And I realized that at
Speaker 1: seventeen years old that I probably was not going to
Speaker 1: not even probably I'm not going to do that. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I'm not gonna knuckle down like that. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to have what's very potentially going to be
Speaker 1: a lonely road. So acting was less of a lonely road. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, acting for me at that point
Speaker 1: in where you're in plays, there's always fellowships, there's always
Speaker 1: an ensemble, there's always a group dynamic and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: that is accessible for me. Uh. And the music was too,
Speaker 1: there's always that. There was that as well, there's a
Speaker 1: group of claim with other people. Um. But the language
Speaker 1: was like precup compared to acting for me, and I
Speaker 1: could always, you know, I had a really really good
Speaker 1: ear and I could always get work my way around stuff.
Speaker 1: But when it came to this serious theory and the
Speaker 1: study of that and and and being able to understand
Speaker 1: the level it's it's a lot of math really at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, um, intervals and in the
Speaker 1: way chords are structured and the way scales work, and
Speaker 1: theory and and it kind of went in the place
Speaker 1: of my brain where it's just hard to produce. And
Speaker 1: I mean, no actor likes doing math. Yes, what did
Speaker 1: acting come as natural? Um? Yeah, it's not. It's not
Speaker 1: as though I did not work on it. Um, but
Speaker 1: I think there was something that was more a kind
Speaker 1: to me in the playing of it, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that that's the word and every other
Speaker 1: culture for acting to play, not every other, but many
Speaker 1: other cultures that you know, it's not it's it's it's play.
Speaker 1: And I was very adjusted that, well, maybe this is
Speaker 1: something I could groove and and really dig much deeper
Speaker 1: into this and still you know, be in in in
Speaker 1: an ensemble and be discovering this stuff together and not
Speaker 1: sitting in the room with cold door close, in a
Speaker 1: book open and just you know, killing myself kind of
Speaker 1: memorized locally. And has your career gone the way you
Speaker 1: thought it would? Has it turned out the way I
Speaker 1: thought it would? Um? Yeah, I guess in some ways.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean, I it's you know, I'm fifty
Speaker 1: years old and you know, got my first professional job
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen or something like that. So it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely been a marathon and not a sprint. But
Speaker 1: the great thing is that in every step of it,
Speaker 1: I've still been doing. Assume that you know got me here.
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything else for that really to support myself,
Speaker 1: and I haven't um, I haven't really looked back. You know,
Speaker 1: you didn't shy away from showing Miles as vices, and
Speaker 1: that was part of the story, and Miles wasn't ashamed of,
Speaker 1: you know, owning that. Do you think in anything genius
Speaker 1: that that torture, to that pain and suffering? Do you
Speaker 1: think it needs to be there? And and moreover, is
Speaker 1: it is it worth it? I can't answer if the
Speaker 1: need word all I can say that it was there,
Speaker 1: and I believe all of it, everything was consumed and
Speaker 1: went into his music. What are you being able to
Speaker 1: do it without that? I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if some part of me believe that the question is moot,
Speaker 1: because it it is. What was the m You know
Speaker 1: where he's at and where he was at, So there
Speaker 1: it is. And I'm getting blown up on the other
Speaker 1: line of like Donce and asked once moved questions. All right, man,
Speaker 1: it's been great, Thank you so much for coming on. Okay,
Speaker 1: take it easy. That well, there it is for those
Speaker 1: interested in seeing Miles ahead. It's opening in New York
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles, Friday, April eighth, and is likely to
Speaker 1: expand nationwide in the weeks to come. Next week on
Speaker 1: Talk Easy, we'll have comedian political commentator Denzel Washington superfan
Speaker 1: w Kamal Bell on the show. Here's a bit from that.
Speaker 1: You know everybody, she probably describes me the same way
Speaker 1: I would say she everybody's a crazy X. She's a
Speaker 1: crazy X. No, she's probably sitting and we're calling me
Speaker 1: the crazy X. And do you guys get into like
Speaker 1: huge fights and she's just a lot of like nothing.
Speaker 1: It was just, I mean, it was funny. When I
Speaker 1: look back on it, It wasn't that dramatic, but it
Speaker 1: just felt at the time like very sly. You know
Speaker 1: when two people sort of climb into an emo hole together,
Speaker 1: listen to a lot of Radiohead and is that who
Speaker 1: you did? Yeah? She radio Head was a favorite band.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of sex to radio Head, which
Speaker 1: is a weird band. Sex that's too weird. Yes, you
Speaker 1: generally want Cama hold a lot of sex to Carma Police,
Speaker 1: which is not a not a swerve getting song. That no, D'Angelo, no, no,
Speaker 1: she was it was cake in Radiohead And oh there's
Speaker 1: a woman. Senor beth word. I mean you should be
Speaker 1: proud of yourself for being able to have sex. People,
Speaker 1: people who need people. Big thanks to Vince and Karen
Speaker 1: Larson for helping coordinate this interview. The music is by Vanilla,
Speaker 1: a wonderful artist out of the UK, which you can
Speaker 1: find in the show notes. The graphics are by Ian Jones,
Speaker 1: Technical assistance from Joe Stillwater, Executive produced by Dave Chen
Speaker 1: and of course the show was produced and edited by
Speaker 1: Corea Tad. I'm your host, Sam Frago, so thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. I'll see you next week. People. People, people,