E-mail a friendCraig Brewer
original airdate May 3, 2005
Until recently, Craig Brewer was an unknown writer-director whose only credit was the digital movie The Poor and Hungry, a hit on the festival circuit. He's now known as the director of Hustle & Flow, the most successful film in Sundance history. A Virginia native who grew up in Memphis, Brewer wrote and directed plays in school and attended the American Conservatory Theatre. He returned to Memphis and used a small inheritance to make his first feature. Plans are underway to work again with Crunk Pictures on future projects.
Craig Brewer
Tavis: Craig Brewer is an up-and-coming filmmaker whose movie 'Hustle & Flow' became the talk of this year's Sundance Film Festival. Following the success of Sundance, the movie was sold to Paramount for a record $16 million. That was good news, not just for Mr. Brewer, but for Mr. Singleton, as in John Singleton. The Oscar-nominated director put up over $3 million of his own money to produce 'Hustle & Flow.' The film stars Terrence Howard, Anthony Anderson, and Taryn Manning. It opens in July. There's buzz about this thing like you would not believe. I've already seen two or three articles in the New York Times, a couple articles in the L.A. Times, and other places. It ain't out yet! Here now, a scene from 'Hustle & Flow'.
Djay: Hey, do me a favor. Go on an' put your hands right here, both of 'em. Now I'm gonna put mine's here, too. You know what this means?
Nola: What?
Djay: That means we in charge. That means we got our hands on the wheel. We in charge, not them tricks out there, man. We in charge. I want to hear you say it, so I can believe in you the same way you believe in me.
Nola: We in charge.
Djay: That's the best you can do? Say it like you mean it.
Nola: We in charge.
Tavis: Craig Brewer, John Singleton, I think you got a hit on your hands. It's nice to see you both.
John Singleton: Good to see you, too.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. I was tellin' John, when you walked up, Craig, the title 'Hustle & Flow' has so much flavor to it, I think that phrase alone is going to become iconic. Where'd you get the title 'Hustle & Flow'? 'Cause I'm lovin' it.
Craig Brewer: Well, you know, I think at least in the rap game, I think in any endeavor of creativity, I mean, even making a movie, I don't think you could have one without the other. I'm sure artists like Rodin and everybody had to hustle. Orson Welles, I mean, all these guys, in order to do what they--to say what they wanted to say, they always had to put up with something that they had to do as opposed to something they wanted to do, and a lot of the cats that I know in Memphis that were putting together beats and were putting together rap, you know, just in their homes, you know, just in closets, little makeshift little studios that they put together, they were hustling to make music. They were sellin' things and makin' things happen just so they could record in their own homes, you know, just for themselves, you know, just to get something out there in the streets.
Tavis: See, I got people in my office saying this now, John. Somebody asked me how I was doing the other day. I said, 'Just hustle and flow, hustle and flow,' and now every--I saw the janitor yesterday. I said, 'How you doin'?' he said, 'Just hustle and flow, hustle and flow, Mr. Smiley.' I was like, 'OK.' Everybody now is hustle and flow. Tell me about--I'm gonna get to John here in a second, but tell me, Craig, about the storyline. I was sittin' there thinkin' how I could explain this, and I can do this, but you do it better.
Brewer: Well, I mean, essentially it's about a guy, you know, who has to reinvent himself. He's the street hustler. He's not--obviously he's not like a kind of character you want to invite over to, you know, meet mom and dad, necessarily, but he's a real character in Memphis. You know, he hustles; he does dealing, like, marijuana. He pimps, but it's not in this stereotype way that I think that usually films portray that. And one day he just realizes that, you know, he's been moving an inch across the room every day for his whole life and suddenly he's on the other side of the room from where he thought he would be at this age. I mean, he's really beginning to feel--you know, his father died at the same age that he is now and he's beginning to question, you know, 'Should I get back to doing what I was wanting to do when I was 13?' So he gets together with all these friends and they start building this makeshift recording studio out of this shotgun house. You know what a shotgun house is?
Tavis: Absolutely. Yeah, you look from the front all the way to the back.
Brewer: Right.
Tavis: My grandmother had one of those. You could shoot a gun straight through. We don't have those out here in L.A., but anyway, go ahead.
Brewer: Well, you know, so the whole movie is really about creativity. It's about people having to come together in one room and make something. So much in rap is about kind of the payday, and we really wanted to make a movie that was about the guys that were struggling, you know, not about the famous guys, but the journey of people having to make music by any means necessary, and the people and how it affected their life.
Singleton: And there's a whole culture of these guys throughout the whole country that make these home studios that put the drink holders up and they ship equipment and all trying to make beats and they're all trying to be the next rap star, and, you know, we made a movie about that guy, you know?
Tavis: Speaking of which, John Singleton, when we get off the air here I need to talk to you privately 'cause I need a loan. Ha ha ha! I read that John put up $3.5 million of his own cheddar to make this happen, I was like, 'John Singleton, I am--' first of all, daps just on that for putting up--more than that, yeah. Ha ha ha ha! It always is, isn't it? I'm glad you said that 'cause I saw in print that John Singleton puts up $3.5 million, I was like, 'Oh, no. It ain't never that.' If they're saying 3 1/2, as the project got underway more money had to be financed. I know it's more than 3 1/2, so props to you for doing that. Tell me what about the script got your attention to want to put your money up?
Singleton: Well, I got the script from my fellow producer Stephanie Allain, and Stephanie was involved with starting my career with 'Boyz 'n the Hood.' She's the one who kicked and screamed to get the executives at Paramount to make 'Boyz 'n the Hood.' She was basically working the system trying to get the script made with Craig, and she came to me and said, 'Hey, I have this great movie, you know. You really need to read it.' And I read it. And I read it immediately and I called him up and I was like, 'Man, I just read your script. It's phenomenal. I want to help you get this made.' and, um--
Brewer: It's quite a call.
Singleton: Yeah, you know, I called you in Memphis. And we went out to some of the same places that they got turned down by, you know, with me attached also as producer and I said, 'Hey, this is what it is. It's Southern hip-hop, it's gonna be the first Crunk movie. It's what 'Boyz' was--is now to the South what 'Boyz' was to the West. This is gonna be to the South, it's gonna be like a big, big eventful kind of little movie.' And nobody wanted to make it. And we were all sitting there despondent, like, you know, what are we gonna do and, you know--I had just made '2 Fast 2 Furious' and stuff and I was like, 'You know what?' I was like, 'Forget this. I'm just gonna do it myself.' You know what I mean? We're gonna get together and we're gonna make this movie. and then once, you know, it was kind of intimidating saying that, but then once we said that, our whole mindset, like a big weight came off our shoulders because we were like, 'Yeah. We can do this.'
Brewer: It was strange because the spirit of all of us making this movie mirrored the story. You know, you had a lot of people in the story that--
Tavis: Y'all were doing the hustle and flow.
Brewer: We were. And also you had actors that wanted to do something different. You had Anthony Anderson, who came to us as an actor, you know. He was like, 'Look, I know that people pay me the big bucks to make everybody laugh, but I'm really serious about my craft and I want to be taken seriously as a craftsman.'
Tavis: Speaking of actors, what is this movie--I got my own ideas about this. What do you think this movie is gonna do for Terrence Howard?
Singleton: It's launching Terrence into a whole other stratosphere as an actor. He's being offered all types of different parts and he's just--he's doing the 50 Cent movie right now with 50, and I just directed him in 'Four Brothers.' I got Terrence's next movie right off of 'Hustle & Flow' 'cause I knew he was gonna be so hot off our movie.
Tavis: John Singleton is a businessman, y'all. John is a businessman. Yeah.
Singleton: So Terrence is, you know, he's going to a whole new level.
Tavis: Talk to me, John, about how--you mentioned 'Boyz 'n the Hood' earlier and what you and Stephanie had to do to get that movie made. How did it feel--how does it feel for you to come out of pocket with this kind of money to give another young brother the same opportunity that somebody gave you?
Singleton: It's cool. The thing about it is, Craig was a filmmaker before he even made 'Hustle & Flow'. He did, like, several different films on DV. He wrote them himself, he shot them himself, he directed them himself, he edited himself. And so he had all these DV movies that he had made, and he made a feature, also on DV. So, it's like--but there's a culture in Hollywood right now that for young filmmakers that doesn't facilitate new blood coming in. And it's just not there anymore. There's no one trying to help young filmmakers. So when I read his script 'Hustle & Flow,' I was like, 'This is what they used to tell us in film school.' You know, you should be able to feel the script leap from the page and feel the story. And that's what was there. And I was like I saw that and I saw what he had done with the DV films, and I was like, you know, he's got to do a feature, you know? And it was cool, but when we met, we were like brothers. We started like just finishing each other's sentences about pictures that we loved, movies that we loved and stuff.
Brewer: Music. Talking Stax.
Singleton: You know, so it was like, you know, it was cool.
Tavis: You mentioned Stax. Anybody who hears that word thinks Memphis automatically. Memphis figures prominently into this storyline. You still live in Memphis, I'm told.
Brewer: Yeah, yeah.
Tavis: Tell me about the stories you think--I love Memphis--but tell me about the stories that you think exist in Memphis that aren't being told, because you're bringing one to life here, obviously.
Brewer: Well, I think, you know, Memphis has been the place, at least cinematically, where our history has always been told, you know. A lot of our identity is mixed up with music, and we really wanted to make a Memphis story. And what I feel that is in particular, there's a story I always tell about Ike turner going up to record 'Rocket 88' with Sam Phillips. And it was his first time. I think he was like 20. And he had an amplifier on his car, and it busted. Fell off the car and it broke. So Sam Phillips puts some newspaper in the amplifier 'cause it was distorted. And now that sound, that distorted guitar sound, is considered like the first rock 'n roll song. And now everybody's trying to mimic that mess-up, you know. And so you look at Stax. You look at David Porter and Isaac Hayes and Otis Redding and all these guys in an abandoned movie theater. And just using what they could to make some of the most incredible music of the modern era.
Tavis: And Al Green is on this soundtrack, is he not?
Brewer: Oh, yeah, yeah, and, I mean, that was recorded at Royal Studios. And if you've been to Royal Studios, I mean, I still--
Singleton: History.
Brewer: Yeah, it's just amazing. And really that same spirit is happening with the young guys making rap. You know, they know their history. They're putting together music by any means necessary.
Tavis: I'm gonna give you about 20 seconds a piece to tell me--'cause there is a message in this movie, I think, a number of them--for you, Craig, what's the lesson in this flick?
Brewer: Well, I think, and we even say it in the movie, I feel that no matter who you are, that everybody has the right to contribute a verse. You know, everybody, no matter who you are has the right to reboot, has the right to dream and to hope and to try to get what they want out of life.
Tavis: John.
Singleton: Everybody has a dream, you know.
Tavis: You guys are making your dream happen. Congratulations to both of you in advance of what I am certain is going to be a hit.
Singleton: Hit of the summer. One-hit summer.
Tavis: And a phrase that we will all be using from now in perpetuity. 'Hustle & Flow' is the new flick coming July 15. Craig, John, nice to see you both.
Back to May 3, 2005