EURweb |
THE FILM STRIP: Rob Brown in a tale from the hood with Alfre Woodard and Antonio Banderas, Morgan Freeman and Josh Hartnett are killers in ‘Lucky Number Slevin’
Rob Brown, no doubt, has taken the lead with respect to doing films that matter [“Finding Forrester,” “Coach Carter,” “Take the Lead”] Needless to say, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste” and Brown has only taken time from his educational pursuits do movies that not only motivate, but have an impact.
When Brown did “Finding Forrester,” he let it be known in no uncertain terms that that film was a fluke for him. He had gone to an open casting call for extras to pick up some cash for college and ended up getting the lead role of Jamal Wallace. You weren’t too sure at the time of “Forrester” if you wanted to be an actor? “I’m still not sure,” he told The Film Strip. “I’m just happy that I’ve been able to manage this and school so far.”
“I kind of fell into this whole thing,” he explained. “I don't do drama at school. My major is psychology. I'm really just winging it right now, to be real.” Being real for his role in “Take the Lead” wasn’t much of a stretch for the Harlem born Brown. If it’s not something you went through at some point in your life, you knew someone who did.”
And what does Brown want audiences to walk away with after seeing this film? “A number of things. First of all, we just want people to be entertained and have fun and end up dancing in the aisles, which we heard people do. Also, we want people to just be more informed about the school situation.
“It's so obvious, at least I think it is, but public schools lack a lot of resources, which is why Pierre [Dulaine] is going into these schools and teaching these kids something different. Hopefully people will walk away with more concerns about what is going on in city schools, no matter what city they live in.”
Antonio Banderas, who plays Dulaine, at first turned down the script because he thought the screenplay was a “ballroom dancing” film. When encouraged to read it, he realized it struck a chord with his social activist ideas. Banderas directed the racially charged film, “Crazy in Alabama.”
Rattling off a slew of films dealing with inner city schools, Bandera observed that all of the movies mentioned are necessary. “I realize we are not going to change the history of motion pictures, but I think these movies are once in a while necessary to send little messages to kids, educators and parents.”
Alfre Woodard, the principle in “Take the Lead,” says the rule for teenagers on screen need to be broken. “The teens you see on TV and in movies now don't exist. They're stock characters and I don't think they exist anywhere other than on the screen. So I went inside the public schools because I wanted to help tell their story, and of course Antonio is worth getting dressed up for and coming to work.”
Morgan Freeman has broken his good guy mold—well, if you don’t take into consideration “Street Smart”—and is a ruthless killer in “Lucky Number Slevin.” So does he like playing the bad boss? It doesn’t really matter to Freeman. “I like playing,” he says. “ “Just give me something interesting to play and I'm very happy.”
Director Paul McGuigan wanted Josh Hartnett for the role of Slevin because of all his nice guy roles. He also wanted that contrast with him. When I reminded Hartnett that he wasn’t so nice in “O,” where he starred opposite Mekhi Phifer, he laughed. “You’re right. I wasn’t so nice in that. I never tried to play only good guys, and I’ve done a lot of darker roles. I chose this because I thought that it was a multi-faceted character.”
It seems The Film Strip asked the wrong question when Hartnett was queried about having top billing over Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “I'm doing this movie with Sam Jackson now and his people were adamant about him having top billing even though he's only in a third of the film and I'm in every scene. To me it was like, that was fine, whatever. I just want to get to the work.” It should be interesting when the film is released who does get top billing.
.jpg)
