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RADIO
Antoine Fuqua
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Oct 20, 2004
Antoine Fuqua is brutally honest for mainstream Hollywood director which is very surprising in this time of political correctness. Fuqua of course is the director of Training Day which won Denzel Washington an Academy Award, Bait which helped launch Jamie Foxx and more recently Disney’s King Arthur.
But the film he talked with me about was Lightning in a Bottle which brought him back to his music video days when he directed dozens of videos for musicians like Coolio, Prince and Arrested Development.
Lightning in a Bottle is a music video of a different sort; it’s a theatrical release of a one night, one time only concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in which some of the greatest performers in the history of Blues music, including BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Tyler and Macy Gray performed together. "Lightning" captures the emotional spontaneity that only live performances of the Blues can. Interviews with BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Chris Thomas King, Dr. John, Jimmie Vaughn, Honeyboy Edwards, Ruth Brown, Shemekia Copeland, Solomon Burke, Steve Jordan, and Vernon Reid.
Check out the official website of Lightning in a Bottle
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did this project come together?
Antoine Fuqua: It was a blessing from god. I was coming home from church on Sunday with my family and I got a call from Martin Scorsese in my car. I was kind of shocked. He asked me if I liked the blues and I said that I did then he asked if I would like to make a film about the blues. Before he even finished I said yes. From that point we had a lot of meetings with [producers] Alex Gibney, Margaret Bodde and Scorsese. It was difficult because we sat in big conference rooms and wondered how we were going to get all these great blues artists in one place for one night. It was a task but we figured it out then somehow by the magic of god it all happened.
DRE:
At what point did you film this?
AF:
It was on February 7, 2003 and I was just prepping to do King Arthur. That was the tough part because to do both the projects at the same time was difficult. I flew in from London, did the filming at Radio City then jumped on a plane back to London. It was a concentrated dose of blues for me. Then I was editing while directing King Arthur. But I had to do it because for me it’s been a work of passion.
DRE:
Did you have to restretch your music muscles again?
AF:
A little bit. I got to do a lot of interviews with the artists and that was great storytelling and a lot of fun to hear them speak.
DRE:
Considering how hard the scheduling was do you think if it hadn’t been Martin Scorsese calling you might not have done it?
AF:
I don’t think so because I didn’t know anything about it beforehand. My agent called me a couple of days earlier and mentioned that Scorsese was doing a blues documentary but he wasn’t clear.
DRE:
I couldn’t find a comprehensive list of all the music videos you’ve directed but it’s mostly been rap and R & B records which obviously have roots in the blues. Still it’s not like you were doing BB King videos for MTV, so I was just wondering what made Martin Scorsese choose you?
AF:
I’m not sure. I love music and that’s well known. He may have asked around about me and it could be from my uncle Harvey Fuqua [Grammy winning write-singer-producer-musician]. Music drives me in everything I do. I listen to music when I’m writing and even when I’m setting up shots on a set plus I came from music videos. I also know that Scorsese liked Training Day because he called to congratulate me after it came out. I’m sure all that must have come back to him.
DRE:
You had a big hit with Training Day but since then your two films; Tears of the Sun and King Arthur haven’t done as well. How does that affect your career?
AF:
Tears of the Sun had a lot to say about genocide in Africa and was a tough movie to make. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Dealing with Bruce [Willis] was difficult because that’s part of that whole Hollywood system. Also Tears of the Sun made a lot of money in Europe and King Arthur is going to make $400 million worldwide. It’s making a lot of money in Europe. But here people want to see me do another Training Day type film which I want to and am going to do. But films are difficult, it’s all timing. I’m proud of the films I’ve made but I do wish they had made $200 million here; however the studios are still calling.
DRE:
So there have been no repercussions?
AF:
Not really. I was doing a film with Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro called American Gangster which is not going to happen now. Though I just got a call the other day from Jerry Bruckheimer about working together again. Sometimes it’s not really about the finances but about the quality and it’s the same with the blues. The blues is about the art, the craft and the quality. It’s not always the numbers though Hollywood does judge you on that.
DRE:
Would Tears of the Sun have been a lot different if Bruce Willis wasn’t in it?
AF:
Yes it would have been a different film; it would have been about the people and man’s inhumanity to man, not heroism. What the blues musicians experienced in their time I’m experiencing in the film business. There is a price to pay to make certain movies. If you are trying to make a movie that says something, there is a chance it won’t make $500 million then you have to deal with the system. I heard this saying “What’s more important truth or peace? I chose truth so there will never be peace until the truth is known.” When you choose truth there will be difficulties. When I did King Arthur I ran into difficulties. I found that there were black knights because Rome conquered Arabia but nobody would let me say that. But more than ever I’m going to fight even harder. Once the real truth is known in movies and music, because I’m starting a record company, then I think I will more success financially.
Training Day was about the truth because I grew up with that guy. That’s why it hit. With Tears of the Sun the studio assumed people didn’t want to see so they marketed it as an action movie. It was never meant to be that. My past has given me clarity for the future.
If you go into soemthing as an artist then you want to be honest and you hope that everyone else will be honest as well. I’m just getting started and what I’m discovering is that everyone isn’t honest. People will lie straight to your face. They will say “Yeah, we want to make a movie about Africa and tell that story” then all of a sudden you’re deep in it and they want you to cut things out. Now you’re in a tough spot, you’ve moved your family and done everything as an artist believing in the system then all of a sudden they want to pull the plug on you unless you do as they say. Then you have a choice to make.
DRE:
I got a chance to speak with Johnny Messner for his movie Anacondas [The Hunt for the Blood Orchid]; he was also in Tears of the Sun. He seemed like a real nut.
AF:
Yeah he’s a handful. I had my hands full with those guys. It depends on where your head is, if you want to party and have fun that’s one thing, if you’re trying to say something, that’s different and they don’t work well together.
DRE:
Have you thought about another route?
AF:
I’m going to keep hammering away and I’m going to try to find another routes, try to go independent and raise money. These are things I’m just discovering though I’ve heard of it.
DRE:
What is your Untouchables movie about?
AF:
It’s going to be about the rise of Al Capone and not so much Elliot Ness. I can’t comment too much on it because it’s still being written.
DRE:
What keeps drawing you to the criminal underworld?
AF:
There is something inside of me right now that has something to say about that world and the corruption that goes with that world. It’s not just that dirty cop on the street; he’s got to meet with the three wise men who pay someone else off. There are gangbangers on the street and the life they live, why does that happen. It’s like the blues; look at what those people suffered through. Everyone is responsible; America is responsible and not just white America. When you are in search of the truth you have to keep peeling away at that onion. It’s going to make us all responsible including the kids hurting each other out there. the criminal element is the most truthful business I can explore because they are what they are but they don’t run anything. Who runs it? How do drugs get into this country? We’ve got a military that we’ve spent billions of dollars on. Then you find out they have lawyers, judges and politicians in their pocket. That’s the truth I am searching for.
DRE:
What about other projects like Family Union and Bloods?
AF:
Family Union is something I’m developing for my wife [Lela Rochon] and is not necessarily so much about family reunions but about the human experience of people coming together and growing. Bloods is about the black experience in Vietnam. The men that died fighting alongside white men. They had a saying “Same mud, same blood.” Tt’s adapted from Wally Terry’s book, he recently passed away and was a good friend of mine. The soldiers hated each other’s guts until the bullets started flying and they realized they all bleed and die the same.
DRE:
I remember an article, I believe it appeared in Entertainment Weekly about five or six years ago, it was four directors from Propaganda films including you, and the article had you guys saying you were going to rule the world.
AF:
I remember that [laughs].
DRE:
Looking back at that Antoine Fuqua, how do you feel about that?
AF:
I think we got a long way to go to rule the world but I think we’re on the path. For me I think I am just getting on the path I want to be on. The more I go back the more I understand about what I want to do. I have three kids now and a wife so as I’m growing and learning I’m becoming more focused on what I want to say as a filmmaker. So looking back I feel like I was a baby and now I’m just starting to grow up.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Antoine Fuqua is brutally honest for mainstream Hollywood director which is very surprising in this time of political correctness. Fuqua of course is the director of Training Day which won Denzel Washington an Academy Award, Bait which helped launch Jamie Foxx and more recently Disney’s King Arthur.
But the film he talked with me about was Lightning in a Bottle which brought him back to his music video days when he directed dozens of videos for musicians like Coolio, Prince and Arrested Development.
Lightning in a Bottle is a music video of a different sort; it’s a theatrical release of a one night, one time only concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in which some of the greatest performers in the history of Blues music, including BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Steven Tyler and Macy Gray performed together. "Lightning" captures the emotional spontaneity that only live performances of the Blues can. Interviews with BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Chris Thomas King, Dr. John, Jimmie Vaughn, Honeyboy Edwards, Ruth Brown, Shemekia Copeland, Solomon Burke, Steve Jordan, and Vernon Reid.
Check out the official website of Lightning in a Bottle
Daniel Robert Epstein: How did this project come together?
Antoine Fuqua: It was a blessing from god. I was coming home from church on Sunday with my family and I got a call from Martin Scorsese in my car. I was kind of shocked. He asked me if I liked the blues and I said that I did then he asked if I would like to make a film about the blues. Before he even finished I said yes. From that point we had a lot of meetings with [producers] Alex Gibney, Margaret Bodde and Scorsese. It was difficult because we sat in big conference rooms and wondered how we were going to get all these great blues artists in one place for one night. It was a task but we figured it out then somehow by the magic of god it all happened.
DRE:
At what point did you film this?
AF:
It was on February 7, 2003 and I was just prepping to do King Arthur. That was the tough part because to do both the projects at the same time was difficult. I flew in from London, did the filming at Radio City then jumped on a plane back to London. It was a concentrated dose of blues for me. Then I was editing while directing King Arthur. But I had to do it because for me it’s been a work of passion.
DRE:
Did you have to restretch your music muscles again?
AF:
A little bit. I got to do a lot of interviews with the artists and that was great storytelling and a lot of fun to hear them speak.
DRE:
Considering how hard the scheduling was do you think if it hadn’t been Martin Scorsese calling you might not have done it?
AF:
I don’t think so because I didn’t know anything about it beforehand. My agent called me a couple of days earlier and mentioned that Scorsese was doing a blues documentary but he wasn’t clear.
DRE:
I couldn’t find a comprehensive list of all the music videos you’ve directed but it’s mostly been rap and R & B records which obviously have roots in the blues. Still it’s not like you were doing BB King videos for MTV, so I was just wondering what made Martin Scorsese choose you?
AF:
I’m not sure. I love music and that’s well known. He may have asked around about me and it could be from my uncle Harvey Fuqua [Grammy winning write-singer-producer-musician]. Music drives me in everything I do. I listen to music when I’m writing and even when I’m setting up shots on a set plus I came from music videos. I also know that Scorsese liked Training Day because he called to congratulate me after it came out. I’m sure all that must have come back to him.
DRE:
You had a big hit with Training Day but since then your two films; Tears of the Sun and King Arthur haven’t done as well. How does that affect your career?
AF:
Tears of the Sun had a lot to say about genocide in Africa and was a tough movie to make. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Dealing with Bruce [Willis] was difficult because that’s part of that whole Hollywood system. Also Tears of the Sun made a lot of money in Europe and King Arthur is going to make $400 million worldwide. It’s making a lot of money in Europe. But here people want to see me do another Training Day type film which I want to and am going to do. But films are difficult, it’s all timing. I’m proud of the films I’ve made but I do wish they had made $200 million here; however the studios are still calling.
DRE:
So there have been no repercussions?
AF:
Not really. I was doing a film with Denzel Washington and Benicio Del Toro called American Gangster which is not going to happen now. Though I just got a call the other day from Jerry Bruckheimer about working together again. Sometimes it’s not really about the finances but about the quality and it’s the same with the blues. The blues is about the art, the craft and the quality. It’s not always the numbers though Hollywood does judge you on that.
DRE:
Would Tears of the Sun have been a lot different if Bruce Willis wasn’t in it?
AF:
Yes it would have been a different film; it would have been about the people and man’s inhumanity to man, not heroism. What the blues musicians experienced in their time I’m experiencing in the film business. There is a price to pay to make certain movies. If you are trying to make a movie that says something, there is a chance it won’t make $500 million then you have to deal with the system. I heard this saying “What’s more important truth or peace? I chose truth so there will never be peace until the truth is known.” When you choose truth there will be difficulties. When I did King Arthur I ran into difficulties. I found that there were black knights because Rome conquered Arabia but nobody would let me say that. But more than ever I’m going to fight even harder. Once the real truth is known in movies and music, because I’m starting a record company, then I think I will more success financially.
Training Day was about the truth because I grew up with that guy. That’s why it hit. With Tears of the Sun the studio assumed people didn’t want to see so they marketed it as an action movie. It was never meant to be that. My past has given me clarity for the future.
If you go into soemthing as an artist then you want to be honest and you hope that everyone else will be honest as well. I’m just getting started and what I’m discovering is that everyone isn’t honest. People will lie straight to your face. They will say “Yeah, we want to make a movie about Africa and tell that story” then all of a sudden you’re deep in it and they want you to cut things out. Now you’re in a tough spot, you’ve moved your family and done everything as an artist believing in the system then all of a sudden they want to pull the plug on you unless you do as they say. Then you have a choice to make.
Training Day was about the truth because I grew up with that guy. That’s why it hit. With Tears of the Sun the studio assumed people didn’t want to see so they marketed it as an action movie. It was never meant to be that. My past has given me clarity for the future.
If you go into soemthing as an artist then you want to be honest and you hope that everyone else will be honest as well. I’m just getting started and what I’m discovering is that everyone isn’t honest. People will lie straight to your face. They will say “Yeah, we want to make a movie about Africa and tell that story” then all of a sudden you’re deep in it and they want you to cut things out. Now you’re in a tough spot, you’ve moved your family and done everything as an artist believing in the system then all of a sudden they want to pull the plug on you unless you do as they say. Then you have a choice to make.
DRE:
I got a chance to speak with Johnny Messner for his movie Anacondas [The Hunt for the Blood Orchid]; he was also in Tears of the Sun. He seemed like a real nut.
AF:
Yeah he’s a handful. I had my hands full with those guys. It depends on where your head is, if you want to party and have fun that’s one thing, if you’re trying to say something, that’s different and they don’t work well together.
DRE:
Have you thought about another route?
AF:
I’m going to keep hammering away and I’m going to try to find another routes, try to go independent and raise money. These are things I’m just discovering though I’ve heard of it.
DRE:
What is your Untouchables movie about?
AF:
It’s going to be about the rise of Al Capone and not so much Elliot Ness. I can’t comment too much on it because it’s still being written.
DRE:
What keeps drawing you to the criminal underworld?
AF:
There is something inside of me right now that has something to say about that world and the corruption that goes with that world. It’s not just that dirty cop on the street; he’s got to meet with the three wise men who pay someone else off. There are gangbangers on the street and the life they live, why does that happen. It’s like the blues; look at what those people suffered through. Everyone is responsible; America is responsible and not just white America. When you are in search of the truth you have to keep peeling away at that onion. It’s going to make us all responsible including the kids hurting each other out there. the criminal element is the most truthful business I can explore because they are what they are but they don’t run anything. Who runs it? How do drugs get into this country? We’ve got a military that we’ve spent billions of dollars on. Then you find out they have lawyers, judges and politicians in their pocket. That’s the truth I am searching for.
DRE:
What about other projects like Family Union and Bloods?
AF:
Family Union is something I’m developing for my wife [Lela Rochon] and is not necessarily so much about family reunions but about the human experience of people coming together and growing. Bloods is about the black experience in Vietnam. The men that died fighting alongside white men. They had a saying “Same mud, same blood.” Tt’s adapted from Wally Terry’s book, he recently passed away and was a good friend of mine. The soldiers hated each other’s guts until the bullets started flying and they realized they all bleed and die the same.
DRE:
I remember an article, I believe it appeared in Entertainment Weekly about five or six years ago, it was four directors from Propaganda films including you, and the article had you guys saying you were going to rule the world.
AF:
I remember that [laughs].
DRE:
Looking back at that Antoine Fuqua, how do you feel about that?
AF:
I think we got a long way to go to rule the world but I think we’re on the path. For me I think I am just getting on the path I want to be on. The more I go back the more I understand about what I want to do. I have three kids now and a wife so as I’m growing and learning I’m becoming more focused on what I want to say as a filmmaker. So looking back I feel like I was a baby and now I’m just starting to grow up.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
