E-mail a friendDanny Glover
airdate December 3, 2007
Danny Glover is best known as an award-winning actor, producer and director, with credits that include the film version of The Color Purple, the Lethal Weapon series and TV's Brothers and Sisters. He's also a passionate activist, who speaks on such issues as literacy and civil rights, and board chair of TransAfrica Forum, the lobbying organization on Africa and the Caribbean. Glover is co-founder of Louverture Films and exec producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary about Hurricane Katrina, Trouble the Water.
Actor explains why he is supporting John Edwards for president. (1:30)
Danny Glover
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Danny Glover back to this program. The terrific actor has starred in so many notable films, including "The Color Purple - " saw that last night - "Grand Canyon," "Beloved - " saw that two nights ago - and of course, the "Lethal Weapon" series, any night on some channel.
His latest project is called "Honeydripper," which is written and directed by John Sayles. The movie opens in select cities on December 28th. Here now, a scene from "Honeydripper."
[Clip]
Tavis: Hey, Danny.
Danny Glover: (Laughs) Man, he's good.
Tavis: Good to see you, man.
Glover: Let me just tell you how wonderful it was to work with Charles Dutton, man. Rock man. We've known each other for almost 30 years, man.
Tavis: That long?
Glover: This is the first time - yeah, man. When I came back to rehearse "Master Harold and the Boys" at Yale Rep before we went to Broadway, I stayed with Rock. I stayed with Rock in his apartment. It was so wonderful to be working with Rock for the first time.
Tavis: I walked into a hotel the other day in New Orleans and he was sitting in the lobby.
Glover: Yeah, man.
Tavis: And I went over and just sat down and talked to him and had a good (unintelligible).
Glover: Yeah. But he's such a good spirit, man; he's such a beautiful spirit, man.
Tavis: Well, that's because - well, so are you. That means you attract people like that.
Glover: Well, see, we attract each other, or Lisa Gay Hamilton or just the wonderful cast in "Honeydripper."
Tavis: I want to talk to "Honeydripper" in just a second, but back to my earlier attempt at humor. Every night, I see you in some movie on some channel somewhere, which says to me - and you and I have been friends for years - but it says to me that you have a body of work now that literally can sustain TV channels all over the dial. Do you ever turn the TV on at night just to see yourself?
Glover: No, I never see myself unless I inadvertently turn the television on and see something that I'm in or whatever, then I'll turn the channel, whatever it is. (Laughter) But I don't look at myself. But the wonderful thing is about having that body of work and to be associated with such diverse work, from the directors who just are quite extraordinary directors from - of course Steven Spielberg or Jonathan Demme or (unintelligible) - all the kind of movies that I've been involved in. But what I'm excited about is not what I've done in the past, it's what I want to do and the kind of things I have in mind (unintelligible).
Tavis: That's why I raise that, because there is, again, so much stuff you've starred in that on any given night you can flip the channel and inadvertently or advertently find Danny Glover in something, which I would think impacts, at this point in your career, the kinds of decisions you're making about how you want to expand that body of work. So how does "Honeydripper" fit into that?
Glover: Well, "Honeydripper" sits right in the center of that. We're talking about a movie, a film, that I think it's much more about the idea of resuscitating collective memory. We're talking about using - John Sayles is so adept at taking a particular life, an individual's life, and making that life translate into much larger fabric of what is happening in the movement of people.
If we use music as a metaphor, the change in music as a metaphor, as the under girth of all these social activities that happen. Music has something to deal with not only the expression of a particular generation, but also the technological advances that are happening. If we use that as an under girth of understanding the civil rights movement, i.e. the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, etc., etc., we can see that translation from one - from rhythm and blues to rock and roll to soul music to rap, etc., etc.
Tavis: And jazz, and everything else, yeah.
Glover: And that's what's so beautiful about being able to kind of do this kind of cultural production. And I underline the word cultural production. Not simply just doing the film; that the film has some sort of deeper message, an underlining message about how we are and our relationship with each other, and how we understand ourselves.
We need that kind of work. This is an independent film. We need that kind of work as we move forward to try to understand what we need to do in the 21st century.
Tavis: To your point, though, music really is, when you think about it - I think many of us don't - there are songs we hear that remind us of a certain person or a certain place or a certain thing.
Glover: Absolutely, absolutely.
Tavis: Music really is the sound - each of us has a soundtrack to our own lives.
Glover: That's exactly. And my soundtrack is -
Tavis: What's on your soundtrack?
Glover: My soundtracks starts with - maybe it starts with The Miracles and before then, the music that I heard before then, early James Brown. Then that soundtrack goes through Miles Davis, it goes through people like the Rolling Stones. It also goes through Bob Dylan, and then the Grateful Dead. Then there's Jimi Hendrix and then comes Stevie Wonder, and then Bob Marley, and then some more Miles, and all that.
That's the soundtrack. But the music, in a sense, in itself is rebellious. Music is also in some sense pushing forward the envelope. And I think that we have to understand the cultural production that we're involved in - music, however performance art is something that pushes the envelope.
Tavis: I say this with all due respect and with love and admiration, but since you used the word rebellious, you are a rebellious individual. I'm thinking of Flip Wilson now, the character Geraldine, "The devil made me do it." Since your music was rebellious, did the music make you this way? Did the music make you do it?
Glover: No, it's just being a part of this extraordinary part of the 20th century, man. I was born 61 years ago, man. So there's so much that's happened in that 61 years - 1946, desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces in 1947. My parents came to the post office, desegregation of the federal workforce in 1948. And all of the kind of stuff that happened with me - Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, SNCC 1959-1960.
On and on and on and on and on. The San Francisco State strike to create a - at my school, which we were all involved in, 1968, 40 years ago next year. That's what I'm a part of. And all of that I'm able to bring to my life and bring to my work. I don't care if it's in "Honeydripper" or if it's in "To Sleep with Anger" or whether it's - all of that's a part of me. It's a part of not only my immediate history that I live, but it's an extension of a collective memory, and the historic memory that I'm a part of.
Tavis: Tell me a bit more about the character you play - before I move off of "Honeydripper" - in the movie.
Glover: Well, let's just take Tyrone here, 1950 Tyrone. Let's say Tyrone was born in 1895 and 1896. It was Plessy vs. Ferguson that reinforced segregation in Louisiana (unintelligible). Here's a man that has changed the trajectory of his life. Here's a man born into a paradigm that says that you're going to pick cotton, that you're going to service the land, that you're going to be stuck there indefinitely, interminably, and he breaks through that.
He uses music or this movement and getting on the road to change his life and to see other parts of life. And then he begins to shape his life. Even though he has this dark moment, as always, the music of blues - music is always something that happens between two men and what they do to each other in service or in love for a woman.
Something happens between them as he moves through his life. He becomes successful. Then he's into this other period of time where integration, he's just on the precept, just at that moment when the civil rights movement is about to happen, and everything was about to break loose in another way. All these things are reflected in Tyrone's life, but he's a survivor. He becomes an entrepreneur, a Black entrepreneur in 1950, in Alabama. You know what I'm saying?
Tavis: Danny Glover loves complex characters. (Laughter) He can work out a complex character, look at his (unintelligible) -
Glover: The beautiful thing is that we don't deal with the complexities that we deal with. My problem now is people saying, “Why do we deal with the complexities?” We're talking about what's happening now, how do we deal with the issues around what poverty is, and how we talk about poverty in a real way? We see something happening in terms of subprime loans, which we know would impact - people are talking about $300 billion.
This is a lot of money, but we know there's economists, there's a multiplier effect to that. It's a trillion dollars, and more than that. And who's it going to affect first? It's going to affect poor people. It's going to affect people who have been marginalized; it's going to affect people of color. That's who it's going to affect.
Tavis: When I think poverty, I think, in this campaign, at least, of John Edwards, a guy you're supporting now, in part because I assume is his position on poverty issues?
Glover: Well, certainly, it sounds out. He's been very forthcoming in terms around the issues around poverty, and how we need to pay attention. We know that, there's 47 million working Americans without adequate healthcare. Over 30 million children living in poverty in this country. And we see the manifestations of New Orleans in every single inner city in this country. Nobody's talking about that.
The idea of a Black man as president is a wonderful idea. The idea of a woman as the president is a wonderful idea. But what does that mean in terms of really changing the existing construct and creating real change and addressing the real problems? Do they simply become - has this become a cult of personality or some sort of image that we've allowed ourselves to fall into, and not understanding the real complexity of what's happening in this world? And the issues around job creation, education, healthcare - who's going to be able to talk about and address those in the 21st century?
Tavis: Speaking of presidents, the last time I was in Venezuela, I spent a whole night talking with you.
Glover: We (unintelligible) talking with (unintelligible).
Tavis: Talking to Hugo Chavez, spent the whole night at his presidential palace talking to him all night, and you and I were sitting next to each other. This referendum, he lost yesterday, barely - 51-49. He has come out today and said, and I'm paraphrasing, but he did come out with humility and said maybe I overreached on this, but it shows that democracy is living and that I accept democracy.
The Bush administration, of course, for their own reasons, happy about the defeat, but Chavez did say today that perhaps he overreached. What's your take on how this whole thing has played out?
Glover: Well, I think exactly what we all need to see - that democracy works. A real democracy, a transparent democracy. He didn't go back bickering and everything about what might have happened, who might have tried to undermine, and what efforts which might have been illegal the process, but democracy works.
And (unintelligible) basically, but understanding that this referendum represented more than just changing term limits. This represented a way in which we could look at the issue around land reform. A way we can look at the issues of identifying and honoring work of those who are in the informal sector by giving them Social Security, and a way in which we would look at the amount of time, the length of the work day.
All these are important aspects of an economy of a social system, a social construct, is changing. So it was easy to focus on the whole idea of the personality of the president without listening and looking at the intent of building a movement behind the kind of effective change that is going to change the lives of Venezuelans.
Tavis: I call you an actorvist - you're neither one; you're not an actor or an - you're both, so I call you an actorvist. Is there a price that a guy like you pays for being so vocal and being an actorvist in your business?
Glover: Well, it's hard to tell. We're in a society where there's a lot of things that happen in our lives that we can't explain. There's a great deal of surveillance and a great deal of other things. I'm not going to be able to say that it's put some definitive explanation of what has happened and not happened in my life, and whether I worked or not worked. The fact is that I take serious the fact that I'm a citizen. I take serious and do not believe that I abdicate my responsibility as a citizen because of my visibility.
I want to be in the same place that Harry Belafonte is. I want to be in the same place that Ossie Davis in and Ruby Dee in. I want to be in the same place that Paul Robeson be. And we all have to make these choices, and they're based upon the choices about being free men and women.
Tavis: Not a bad place to want to be, where Robeson, Ruby, Ossie, and Belafonte have stood and stand, and that's why we love Danny Glover. The new movie starring Danny Glover is "Honeydripper." Danny, I love you, good to see you, man.
Glover: Thank you so much.
Tavis: Stay strong.
Back to December 3, 2007