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RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Dourdan's bio on CSI site
• An interview with Mr. Dourdan on Africana.com

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Tavis: Gary Dourdan's got a pretty good job, especially if you consider that he once played jazz just to pay the bills. The talented actor now goes to work each week on the set of the number one show on television. Here he is in a scene from the phenomenon that is 'CSI.'

Look at that. Current went through the phone.

From what?

Heat lightning. Storm rolls through the desert. Sometimes it strikes in town.

Uhh!

Electrocution through a phone line?

Thought that was a myth.

This look like a myth to you?

Tavis: Gary!

Gary Dourdan: Hi, sir.

Tavis: Nice to see you.

Gary: Nice to see you.

Tavis: You make a lot of money for CBS. This show is making a lot of money for CBS.

Gary: We're doing real good, yeah.

Tavis: So much so that they paid you enough to get a haircut.

Gary: Ha ha ha!

Tavis: You got rid of those dreads.

Gary: No, that was way before 'CSI' was even invented, yeah.

Tavis: Tell me why--I'm trying to be funny, at least, my manic sense of humor. Tell me in all seriousness, though, why you got rid of those dreads, because there's so many sisters around the country...

Gary: They still ask me. It's been about 10 years.

Tavis: "Gary, why did you get rid of your dreads?!"

Gary: I know! It's been about 10 years. They still ask me why. "What did you cut your hair for?" I think at that point I was doing--you know, it was before anyone with dreads was on TV. When I had them on TV, I think I was doing 'Different World' and a couple other programs, and then it was--a lot of people were saying, "You can't do any roles because you have locks." Then it was how many roles I was doing because I had locks. And then I cut them right after I did 'Alien: Resurrection' with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and I cut them before we even premiered the movie. So when I came back from--I went to Africa and I cut them there. I almost became a Muslim over there, and I cut my hair off, and I just wanted to change. I want to renew. I wanted to kind of start over again. I think I kind of got thwarted by the industry a little bit. I was tired of doing the same kinds of roles over and over again, getting the same limiting roles. I wanted to just branch out and--

Tavis: Limiting because of the hair?

Gary: Limiting because of the hair. There was a lot of period pieces I couldn't do, except if you're playing maybe a Buffalo Soldier, or if you're playing somebody in Jamaica, but also limiting in the scope of what television and what film is all about. For writers who write in Hollywood, they have a limited scope as to what they see.

Tavis: I'm glad you said that because it raises this question: What does that say about this business, about this industry that so much--all that stuff you just listed--is connected to a hairdo?

Gary: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we're a real image-conscious, you know, society. And we're a really image-conscious, you know, business as the entertainment business. It's all image-conscious. Tom Cruise wouldn't be Tom Cruise if he didn't look the way he did and act he did, so I understand that. So a part of that was, you know, going through my head as I was cutting my locks, but it was also cut as far as a renewal in my sense. You get a lot of things caught up in your hair, a lot of spiritual things caught up in your hair. I think I wanted to change that, renew myself, go back to the business with a new sense of renewal.

Tavis: Well, it worked because 'CSI' is a hit.

Gary: Apparently.

Tavis: A huge hit. I've been dying to ask this question, just between me and you.

Gary: Mm-hmm.

Tavis: I love seeing a brother on TV, you know, digging and delving deep into scientific matters and issues. How'd you do in science in school?

Gary: I stunk.

Tavis: So did I. Ha ha ha! I've yet to meet a brother who did well in science.

Gary: They showed me to do it real quick.

Tavis: Yeah!

Gary: I learn everything I learn now on the job. It's on-the-job training. They teach me and I go, "Really? Is that what that's for?" But it's fantastic because I get to learn every day at work. They teach me 5-syllable Latin words and I'm able to retain 'em. My short-term memory is great, but my long-term memory, man. Heh heh!

Tavis: Don't ask you what 2 episodes ago was all about.

Gary: Exactly!

Tavis: Yeah. Now I find that fascinating. I was so honored--I mean, so delighted and so pleased rather, and honored because of the role that you had accepted, the role they offered you, to play a character that is in fact an African American man who's doing something that we don't see represented every single day, especially when people like me just bombed in science class.

Gary: Well, it helps on 2 levels. One--I've gotten notes from my superiors at CBS and Viacom, and they've told me that it's the number one show in black households, which I was really surprised about. I thought that there was a lot of other shows that featured an all-black cast that that wouldn't be possible. But to have this drama that I'm the only ethnicity on this show be the number one show in black households, I feel like a pride that you can't even imagine.

The other is in school, you know, we're all going to school, a lot of teachers don't really--they may not teach that well that we want them to teach. Now they're starting to have teachers because this show--I have teachers come up to me and say, "We showed your show in our schools because it helps us teach." And I like that because the teaching--a lot of teachers are not getting paid a lot of money, and they come to school disgruntled, and they want to put a little bit of life into their work, so they use our show as an example. So on a couple of levels, I'm really proud about being on this particular show.

Tavis: As you well should be. I mentioned in my introduction of you, of course, that back in the day, you found yourself playing jazz because you had bills to pay.

Gary: Yeah, well, you know, in New York, back in the day, as an artist, I was doing theater. I had a band. I had 2 bands. I was working 3 different jobs. I was a bartender. I was a doorman. I was doing anything I could.

Tavis: So you weren't acting like a Jamaican. You really were working like a Jamaican.

Gary: I was working like a Jamaican, yeah. You have to survive, you know? And you see a lot of the old performers back in the day, and people don't realize, like, maybe Harry Belafonte or a lot of the performers that we see as the godfathers of performing, Sidney Poitier, they had to dance, they had to sing, they had to, you know, record. They did everything they could to get that instrument rolling. Debbie Allen is another one who's really pushed that forward for me. But there's no division between these arts. You have a lot of rappers now that are acting, and they think it's a big thing, but it's not a big thing. They're just performers.

Tavis: What do you make of--let me come back to that, 'cause there are a lot of people who, with respect to your statement just now about this, see that issue differently, and this is not to cast aspersion on rappers, but there are a lot of folk in this business who are bothered by--just like there are folk who are bothered by reality television: taking away real jobs--

Gary: Let's look at that.

Tavis: These rappers step into the acting game.

Gary: Monetarily, for the financiers, for the gatekeepers who are the financiers of these films, it's gonna help to put a rapper in this film because it's gonna sell the film to this young audience.

Tavis: But if you can't act, what's that doing to the business? Isn't that taking a role from--

Gary: It is. It definitely is. If you can't act, if you're not doing the role any justice, it makes it look like, you know, it makes it look bad. But, uh, for the financiers and for the people who want a return on their product, it's looking at something that's going to give them a return instead of hiring a really good actor who studied at Harvard and Yale School of Drama, they'd rather hire a rapper who just got a platinum record, who just went to prison, who has a lot of notoriety.

Tavis: So should the true thespians in this city be mad about that?

Gary: No, they should just be rapping.

Gary: That's what I'm saying.

Tavis: Just start rapping, huh?

Gary: You know what I mean? "You're gonna do that, I can rap."

Tavis: Yeah.

Gary: You know.

Tavis: Um, tell me though-- I know you played because you had bills to pay, you just said a moment ago. You had to do a bunch of different things, working like a Jamaican, but you obviously must love music, though.

Gary: Absolutely. Where would we be without music?

Tavis: Can you imagine?

Gary: I cannot.

Tavis: Scary, isn't it?

Gary: It's very scary.

Tavis: And yet African Americans in particular do not have an appreciation for and understanding of, I think, and embrace of the only music that this country, black folk, ever created: jazz.

Gary: It's funny. Jazz and blues. If you go to a blues concert anywhere in the country now, a lot of the performers and a lot of the audience, they are not a lot of African Americans. They don't really appreciate their own art form. When you go to Germany, they have a whole part, in certain parts of Germany, that's dedicated to soul music.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Gary: And they won't play anything else. The disc jockeys won't play anything else, and the bands over there in Germany, they're all white guys. They only play old soul music.

Tavis: Speculate for me. Why do you think it is that other folk do appreciate it, and that African Americans don't as they should?

Gary: I'm not exactly sure. I know blues is probably something that, you know, coming out of the struggles of peoples and that music coming out of the struggles is probably something a lot of people don't want to relate to. Jazz, I'm not really sure. I think it's because of our educational standpoint. I don't think we put enough in education. There's a lot of rappers out now. You see rapping as a thing that can make you money. And you see your boy rapping in school, it's something that inspires you to rap. But there's not a lot of jazz programs in school, if you haven't noticed.

Tavis: Uh-huh.

Gary: And when you're in elementary school, and when you're in high school, there's not a lot of push to get people to learn an instrument. There's a lot of push to put a microphone in somebody's hand and write some cool lyrics, but it's not really cool. But it is becoming cool again, and I appreciate the Marsalises for doing that, and Roy Hargrove for merging that line between something that's hip-hop and something that's jazz. But I think we need to pay more attention to the education of that at younger levels and make it cool again. It's cool.

Tavis: You have kids?

Gary: Yeah.

Tavis: How and what are you doing to expose them to a variety of interests, the same interest that you had a chance to be exposed to in your childhood?

Gary: It's osmosis. When you have children, and even adults, when you have osmosis taking place, when you just have it all around all the time, when you're playing the music all the time... My father played so many different musics around the house. On Sunday he played classical. On the weekends, he played jazz, and he played all the jazz. He'd play Lee Morgan. He'd play all the Miles stuff, and it was consistently being played all the time, and my uncles were playing saxophone. It's just they had it around all the time. It's not something-- they sat you down in front of something and made you learn your rudiments. We did that later. But it was something that was constantly around. So it was a lifestyle. It was something that you just breathed, something that was not abnormal to happen. So that's how I teach the children.

Tavis: Let's talk about this George Jackson project that you have just completed?

Gary: Just about. It's almost wrapped. Yeah.

Tavis: Tell me about it.

Gary: It's, you know, at first getting involved into it, coming from a national TV show, a worldwide TV show like this, to take on--

Tavis: You're worldwide. You're not just national.

Gary: Yeah, coming from that worldwide TV show...

Tavis: There you go!

Gary: It was something that I looked at as a piece. It's just the first thing I wanted to do, breaking out on the success of 'CSI.' It's a really strong political piece. And this man was a really strong political warrior. And I looked at it and I said, "Damn right. This is exactly what I want to get involved in," to play this prison inmate who becomes this fantastic novelist and to let people know about him. Because when I took it on, I didn't know a lot about him. It was kind of dusted away in the histories of our archives, something that had happened in history. And the events surrounding him being a prisoner, his brother trying to break him out of prison, everything that had happened is not something a lot of people know about. So I said that this is my opportunity. Plus, there was an undeniable likeness with the way that we looked, so I thought that I could easily go into that role. But then when I found out all his literature and everything he brought to the table, I said absolutely. This is something I wanted to do.

Then I started looking at other actors like Edward Norton or Sean Penn playing people who had had adversities in their life. And for society to look at them, the characters that they played... The difficult thing with a black actor sometimes is maybe some of the characters that we play that try to attribute that with the way that we are politically or our views. And since we are in such a...a certain type of... With the industry is a certain type of industry--it's a very fickle industry. It may affect future work.

Tavis: I don't think so, in your case. You're gonna be fine.

Gary: Oh, I think I will be. Susan Sarandon once said--it really hit me--she said, 'Trying to think about my political, my openness and my aspirations affecting my future work is like trying to worry about my slip showing when I'm running out of a burning building.' And I said the same thing. I said that's a fantastic analogy.

Tavis: I think you'll be fine. Come back and see us any time.

Gary: Thank you, sir.

Tavis: Gary, nice to see you.

Gary: Nice to be here. You're doing great.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. Join me tomorrow on the radio on NPR, and I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Thanks for watching.

Good night from Los Angeles. Keep the faith.