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Howard's Hustle: Writer/director Craig Brewer's Memphis-centric debut Hustle & Flow won the Audience Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and the term "buzz" doesn't begin to describe the tidal wave of sustained praise the movie has garnered from critics and audiences alike. "Hustle & Flow" is a perfect example of an American independent film that boldly embraces its rarefied subject and squeezes out sparks from every scene and every line of subtext-rich dialogue. Terrence Howard's emotionally devastating performance as Djay, a low down pimp making a last ditch effort to turn his life around with music, is steeped in American values of redemption and ambition. Since creating unforgettable sensations on television (NYPD Blue, Sparks) and in movies (Mr. Holland's Opus, Dead Presidents) Terrence Howard has been called the next Denzel Washington. But that lofty compliment doesn't begin to evince the actor's slow burning intensity, inscrutable poise and thoroughly individual nature. Terrence Howard is an actor you absolutely cannot take your eyes off. He's unpredictable and unknowable in ways that beckon to the early career days of Marlon Brando. It's a name that you'll be hearing a lot more of in the coming years. A_P: Where are you from originally? TH: Born in Chicago, raised in Cleveland. A_P: How does it feel to be called the "next big thing" due to your performance in Hustle And Flow? TH: I feel great. Man, I feel great. Everybody smiling and looking at me like y'all know something I don't. Like you got a car waiting for you when you get home. A_P: How much of your life did you have to let go of in order to become your character in Hustle & Flow? TH: All of it. I had to let go of all of my sensibilities. I had to let my conscience go to bed for about a year. It wasn't a question of me just being a character for a couple of months. I mean it would take a good year of demoralizing myself because that's how I work. I mean, I wish I could just snap on and, you know, be somebody. But I had to go through all the motions. I had to start smoking cigarettes again. I watched a bunch of pornography again just to desensitize myself to my own conscience and my own sensibilities. It bothered me. A_P: Did it affect your personal life? TH: You watch two or three hours of pornography every day... What do you think? I had to isolate and alienate myself from my children to accomplish that. So what Stephanie [the film's producer] had asked me is, Can you, for two years, put your wife away, put your children away, put your God away and lend yourself to us for these two years? I said no. Then I read the script. I saw the hope associated with it. So I considered what I was going to have to do to myself was more so as a proctor, so to speak, in giving people an opportunity to see a lifestyle that might give them encouragement and hope. That if DJay could climb out from what he did, then anybody else can climb out. What people may not realize was that DJay's happiest time in his life was when he was in jail. Because he knew he was finally paying for his sins. On his way out he's like, Oh God thank you. You know? I've paid for it all and now I can move forward in my life. That was the message to me. You can accomplish your dreams. You still gotta pay for what you've done wrong, but your dreams are still within reach. A_P: What did shooting the film in Memphis do for you? TH: It gave me the opportunity to live and tell a complete story, you know. Other than that, if we had shot in LA it would have been the same. But you could feel the street and you could feel the heat. You were sweating and they'd have to come and spray you down. You were tired and exhausted and popping mosquitoes off of you all day. We shot that movie in 24 days. A_P: What are your thoughts on rappers like Ludacris becoming actors? TH: Rappers are artists. Chris Bridges is an artist. You know he created the character Ludacris to sing rap but he's an artist and an artist can play in any medium that he wants as long as he learns the medium. And it takes some training and time to learn how to adjust and apply yourself to that new medium. I was a scientist [Howard has a degree in Chemical Engineering from Pratt Institute], a singer/songwriter. I wasn't trained as an actor. How in the hell did they let me come and act? A_P: Did you ever have a time in your life when you were as hopeless as DJay is in "Hustle & Flow"? TH: We all have had that. That's what makes it such an appealing story. You wake up and say, I didn't look like this years ago and I didn't think like this. What kept me going then? What the hell am I doing in this God forsaken life? A_P: What was the bleakest point in your life? TH : Well, my Dad moved us into a house when I was 16 years old to live and support ourselves because my stepmom wanted to shoot us. In the wintertime we didn't have any electricity because we couldn't pay for it, and we had waterbeds. So my waterbed would freeze, and we had a kerosene heater. I remember all the other kids would go to school and be able to do their homework and all that. I couldn't do that. I had to go and figure out whose snow I would shovel or something so I could just get a dollar and twenty-five cents to get a gallon of kerosene so I could burn my kerosene heater. But guess what? When you've got the kerosene burning in the house, you've got to have a window open or you will suffocate. So I had the kerosene on in the middle of the winter, sleeping on a frozen waterbed with my brother and five different blankets, trying to be warm and trying to wash up because all the pipes are frozen in the house. You're trying to wash up; you put a pot on top of the kerosene container so you would have hot water to wash up. So that was my life from 16 to 16 years old in Cleveland. A_P: What gave you hope back then that you could get out of that? TH: I knew that there were people living out in Cambodia that didn't have a house. At least I didn't have to go through that. I just had to go to school. I was good looking and got a whole lot of attention. I just knew one day I would be an actor.
New
York-based film critic Cole Smithey has reviewed over one thousand films
and interviewed such important directors as John Singleton, Paul Schrader
and Steven Spielberg, and such notable actors as Robert Downey Jr., Adrien
Brody, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. |
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