[soft upbeat music] - For over 20 years, director Craig Brewer has been telling stories about characters, from car thieves   to blues guitarists, hustlers   to nightclub performers,   pimps to princes.

He has also been an incredibly   enthusiastic ambassador   of Memphis culture,   peppering his films with   music and performances   of local legends,   including Al Capone,   Bobby Rush, Isaac Hayes,   Justin Timberlake,   and Scott Bomar,   to name just a few.

He has contributed to   Memphis' film, music, comedy,   and even basketball culture.

Welcome to A Conversation with Craig Brewer.

I'm your host, Mike Degnan.

All right, Craig.

Thank you so much for being here today.

- Thanks for having me.

- And for having us here in this amazing space here in Crosstown.

- Yeah, yeah, it's been a little bit of a dream to get a spot where not only I can hang out, but where, we're trying to do a lot with the high school, and my kids and their friends like to hang out.

That's primarily about making things creatively and films and shorts and all kinds of stuff.

- Your family is originally from the area, Collierville and Rossville.

- Yeah, yeah, Memphis was always, even though I had to move around a lot with my mom and my dad, Memphis was always considered where I was from, and so I would spend my summers here.

But I've now been living here I guess consistently since about 1994.

Other than that, it was just where grandmom and granddad were, and where I'd come to visit.

- When you were a kid, you started off in theater, right?

- Yeah, I always loved movies, but, you know, it's still and is today for a lot of people, it feels like that thing that's more of a privileged art form, where you have to have money, you have to have connections, to do everything.

And so, because I couldn't do it at a young age, I went into children's theater, and for a chubby kid whose granddaddy was a famous ballplayer and who was not good at sports at all, it was really the only opportunity I had to not just meet, but even see girls.

And so, I went into theater and did a lot of plays, and the older I got, I started writing more, and doing skits.

And by the time I got into high school, I started to write full plays and direct full plays, and so all my life, there's always been a rehearsal, there's been schedules, there's been meetings where I have to deal with other artists.

So, if I were to point to one thing in my life, that probably was the best thing for me, it was being involved in the theater.

- Sure, and you were not just performing and writing, but also doing the technical side.

- Oh yeah.

- So you'd have to learn all the different skills.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

The great thing about theater, especially like children's theater and high school is that if you're not in the play, then you're probably up on a ladder hanging fresnels or changing gels or any of that kind of stuff.

But now I'm finding that when I'm on set with a lot of people on my crews, is that all that knowledge from back in the day, really helps me today.

Even down to- well in television, one thing that happens a lot is we'll run two cameras, and it's a way that the producers can say, "Well, we're saving time."

Well the problem is if you're doing a wide shot and a close-up on somebody, the boom operator is kind of screwed on that because he can't, you know, you can't bring the boom in on a wide shot.

And so, little things like that and also with lighting as well that I'm hyper-aware of that, where I do see a lot of filmmakers that you can tell they're new because they're just like, "Well, why can't we do that?"

And you see this really awkward moment with the crew where they feel like well this still is the person in charge, but at the same time I'm frustrated because he just doesn't know my job.

And, I would say that really, on Hustle & Flow, John Singleton was the first one to really show me all of that kind of work ethic.

I mean even down to if we were moving to another set, I would pick up the furniture.

And John would kind of pull me aside, and go like, "Hey man, they got people for that, "and they get nervous when you do it because it makes them think that they're not doing their job."

And I was like, "Oh I'm sorry."

So there's all these different positions that I have a tremendous amount of respect for on film sets.

- Well and your respect for everybody involved seems to come through, just because your actors give these great involved performances.

Or specifically, I'm thinking of Dolemite Is My Name or Coming 2 America.

Everybody seems like they're having a great time.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And that just comes through.

Just the joy of creation.

- It's about the set, it really is.

And I've had to work with some actors and actresses that need there to be tension and needs there to be arguments sometimes, and I can learn that usually within the first couple of days of shooting, but that's just not what I want my set to be about.

And my life to be about.

So, I've got music that I'm playing, I usually play Al Green in the mornings.

By the time I get to evening, sometimes it veers into Yo Gotti, but yeah, you know Eddie sometimes on set would show up, and we'd do a blocking rehearsal, and I'd be like, "Where's your guitar?"

He'd be like, "Oh, I thought about bringing it, but I thought we were just gonna do a blocking rehearsal."

I go, "Yeah, but we'll do all the fun stuff when the cameras "are rolling, we're just gonna figure out what we're doing right now, you can bring your guitar here."

So sometimes he would just show up, and would be in casual clothes, and strumming these riffs, and I was like, "Yeah we'll do this, we'll do that."

I try to just keep it really relaxed, and then allow a lot of freedom, and then not try to get too bogged down or specific, specific in my direction with people.

Let's say that I need more energy on a certain line, I'll just say, "Hey let's do one more and put a little more gas behind it."

And I leave it to them to figure out what gas means.

Does that mean faster?

Does that mean more energy?

Does that mean deeper?

I find that when I come in and get too specific with something, I kill something.

And really, I learned that from reading a lot about Jim Dickinson, the music producer, and also Sam Phillips.

I feel like Sam Phillips was kind of like my professor.

I didn't go to film school, but I read a lot about how Sam Phillips dealt with his musicians.

And I find that I'm usually doing that with actors.

Trying to wrangle their performance in a way, but not bog it down or put a fence around it.

- And the music is just a massive part of your films.

Every film, whether it's the soundtrack or just the moments that characters have, I think, of Eli when he hears the cello.

- In Poor & Hungry.

- In Poor & Hungry.

Or DJ when Keith takes him to hear what he does with recording in church, and just has a moment of realization of I need to do something with my life.

- Well it's relatable.

- Yeah, very.

- I find that you don't have to necessarily be into rap to look at Hustle & Flow and say I know that feeling, I know that feeling that I wanted to do this when I was younger, and I got a little sidetracked by life, right?

And then to see people fight for that thing.

I remember when I got the call that "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" was nominated for an Academy Award, and everybody was so incredulous, especially people in Memphis, 'cause as much as I love this city, there's nothing we love better than crapping on our own stuff, just like, "Well there's no way we're going to win."

You know what I mean, there's a little bit of that.

And to some extent, I like that because Memphis sometimes is best in second place.

You know, because we're that scrappy attitude.

It's like we may not take the trophy, but we scraped, we scrapped with it a little bit.

But I think it's that spirit though that really makes everything work, and I remember when I heard that "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" was nominated, I was like, "Well we won it."

They were like, "There's no way we won it."

We're not gonna beat Dolly Parton with Three 6 Mafia.

And I was like, "Yeah, because the audience watched "that song being made.

"And when you watch something in art be made, "and you watch the people passionately making it, "then the audience made it with them, and then they take ownership over it."

And I think that's why that song won.

- I mentioned the basketball in the intro.

- It still boggles my mind.

- Every six months, I go and watch the clip that Morgan John Fox shot of you, of everyone in the Grindhouse, singing along with Al Capone on the floor.

And then, is there a way to even put into words what it feels like to have an arena full of people- - Well I'll you what was wild is that I was in Los Angeles with some friends when we were watching, just the playoffs in this last, on this last run, and it's not like they take a break on national TV and film the audience, much less 20,000 people chanting "Whoop that Trick", but it was undeniable.

You could hear it so loud on the broadcast that people were commenting on it.

And I think what I love about it is that there's- What is it?

In Boston, they sing "Sweet Caroline" at the seventh inning stretch?

All of us chanting "Whoop That Trick", of all ages and races, I mean there's blue-haired old ladies chanting "Whoop that Trick", right?

And it's a fantastic attitude that the city and the team has somehow melded together, and it has to do with the movie Hustle & Flow, which is about that same thing.

And so, I know that every time it comes up, I always have to do an explanation tour because they're like, "Oh is this song about beating women?"

And I'm like, "No it's not about that, the trick is the john and why am I even explaining this to you?"

That's not what the point of this moment is, you know?

But it's- to me, I get very proud, I really do, and Al Capone and I always send each other clips, and it's like can you believe this, man?

- It's just so, such an, and this is gonna sound strange, but such an elegant expression of a spirit that really powers so much of the people in this town.

Yeah, we know there's a lot of things stacked against us.

I mean, I don't know a creative who hasn't had to have two or three other jobs.

- Yeah.

- Because you're gonna have to do everything, but the spirit of Memphis is one of yeah, we're gonna do it.

We're gonna push on through it, and you know, deal with this.

- And also, Memphis has a certain attitude here that you're not punished or looked down upon if you have to have a day job.

You know what I mean?

You can have a great artist in town, and still they're serving you coffee during the day, and there's not this, "Oh, I wish this person would do better so they wouldn't have to do it."

It's just that rock and roll or whatever their art is is just a part of their lifestyle, and now since the pandemic hit, everybody in Hollywood that I know that has always viewed me living in Memphis as this oddity is now completely turned around, and they're just like, "Tell me how you do this.

"How do I get out of this city?

How can I live somewhere else and be part-" And more so be part of a caring community.

That's why I never watch my movies anywhere else, but in Memphis.

I'll do a premiere somewhere, but on the day that the movie opens, there's all this kind of Hollywood crap that comes along with those kinds of things that have to do with how much money did your movie make, and all that kind of stuff that in LA they're worried about.

Whereas in Memphis, people are just like, "Hey man, I saw your movie, man that's awesome."

And it's less of that, the high stakes and more about a community that's just coming out to see your film.

- On that note, Dolemite is My Name, I was so happy I got to see that in a theater in Memphis.

- Yeah.

- I mean it was so great to watch that with a crowd, it's great without a crowd too.

Like Hustle & Flow, it's the story of someone who's going to do things on their terms.

It doesn't matter what everybody else tells them.

They've got a vision, they're just gonna do it any way they can.

- I don't think I've been more confident directing a movie than Dolemite is My Name, and I owe it to two things.

First and foremost, the subject matter.

I did get a ragtag group of people who've never made a movie before to come together to make my first movie.

That movie went out to LA.

It had a screening.

It was able to not only attract agents, but producers like Stephanie Lane and John Singleton saw it.

And then I was able to have a career, and that's what Rudy Ray Moore's story is.

He was guy from Arkansas who did a lot of comedy, did a lot of singing, and then one day came out to Hollywood and was like, "Maybe I need to make a movie, and let's get some people together."

And it may be awful, but it exists, and he was better for it.

And so I understood that to my core, that part of the narrative.

More so, it was because of the ten episodes of Empire that I had just done.

You know, directing those TV shows, and I really say if I learned how to become a filmmaker on my first movie, The Poor & Hungry, it really was Empire that made me a much better director because when you're in service of somebody else's vision, you have to just be a craftsman at that moment.

I understand why Spielberg is so good.

Spielberg is good, not because of film school.

He couldn't get into film school.

So he started directing television, and that's why he's so fast, and that's why he knows so much about everything.

It's 'cause you just can't afford not to.

So Dolemite was that time where I'm working with my idol.

And I didn't feel afraid, and I think that that's where Eddie and I have a really great relationship is that I think that some people, understandably, are scared of him.

And it's not like there's something to be scared of, but you know-- - His status.

- Yeah, he's got great ideas, and I always feel like you've got to listen to him, but I'm proud that he listens to me too.

- Yeah, Eddie just seems so alive in his portrayal of Rudy, and just brought such a depth in the performance.

It's so human and hilarious.

- Yeah, he's been, it's been a passion of his for 10 years, to try to make this movie.

So I think that what was great was that we got a fantastic cast around him.

- Absolutely.

- And also, there were times, you know we talk about directing, there was times that he laughed, he makes fun of me about this even today.

I'll say, "Hey, that was good boss, but let's take some butter off the toast."

"What?"

I was like, "You know, just do what you did, "but less, you know.

Your toast is just fine without all that butter on it."

And I'll walk away, and then I'll sometimes come in, and he goes, "You know what would be pretty good "with this performance is some cayenne pepper, maybe some cloves, should I put that in the performance?"

But I think what I was getting at is that Eddie now is so much a part of our culture of entertainment, there's really nobody on the planet that hasn't grown up or experienced an Eddie Murphy movie, whether it be one of his kids movies or if it's gonna be something like Raw or Delirious, so he doesn't have to work that much for us to feel his emotions, and I'm really happy that especially in Dolemite is My Name, there's really poignant moments with him where he's not trying to make you laugh.

He's an excellent actor.

He also has, I won't call it a burden, 'cause he loves this burden, but he's there to make us laugh and to entertain us.

But still, he's got a deep well with the right role.

- Another actor who is just a cultural icon who you worked with was Samuel L. Jackson.

- He is, he is.

- And when you meet him at the beginning of Black Snake Moan, all you see is the harshness.

All you see is this person who, I mean I'm assuming in some way, he has the name Lazarus because he's kind of dead at the beginning of the film.

And then we see his rebirth through him rediscovering his music and purpose.

But it's such a compelling performance.

- He's excellent in the film.

I mean, he's Samuel L. Jackson, but I got to learn a lot from directing Sam.

I mean even in the first moment, I remember, we had done a rehearsal, and Sam was looking off in this direction, and I said, "Sam, can you look over here?"

And he's like, "Why do I gotta look over there, you know, we just did this rehearsal, it's fine, just-" And I was like, "Well I just thinking about following "this tractor in and landing on you in profile, and introducing you that way."

And he goes, "Well, can I give you an example of what I think it should be?"

And I was like, "Fine."

And then he said, "Look I got a scar on my hand."

And he puts a cigarette in the hand, and he holds his hand, and he goes down almost like he's praying.

So the first image of the movie it looks like he's praying.

But then he lifts his face up, and the smoke was cutting across his eyes perfectly, and he said his opening line.

And it was so undeniably awesome that I think I was just young and couldn't accept the fact that he came up with a better idea than me, and so I was like, "Fine."

And we filmed it, and I could hear my dad, who had passed away years before, kind of saying, "You got schooled.

This is what life is."

It was very dramatic, me running over to the van, saying "Sam, I'm sorry.

"You've made 90 movies.

I think I could listen to you and learn a few things."

And so, we still get together and watch movies in LA, and I would love to work with Sam again.

And for someone like Sam, and this isn't phoning it in.

You get the right material, you get a great crew that's gonna get it in two takes, and then you get out of his way.

I think that's something that shocks a lot of people with directors, is that part of your job is to get the right actors and just, "Do you need another one, no?

"Let's move on.

'Cause that was-" That's why we got Samuel L. Jackson because you did that thing, and you did it perfectly, so let's move on.

- Let's go back a little bit earlier.

So you had moved back to Memphis.

You were taking care of your grandmother.

- Yeah, my grandfather had died and then my grandmother had had a stroke, and so literally the house that my dad grew up in was available, and she was in a home.

So, I came out and I would make sure she had her laundry done, and we'd entertain her.

Take her to the Oak Court Mall for ice cream and stuff like that.

It was a very important time in my life.

I also tried to make a movie during that time, and it was a colossal failure.

It was just, I tried to shoot on film, and tried to do all this stuff that everybody tells you what to do, and this was really before the digital revolution happened in independent cinema.

So to be living in Collierville and be thinking, "Oh, I made this grand statement to all my friends "in Northern California that I'm just gonna come out here and make the great American film, and I'm a failure."

But, you know, that's the manure that you've got to make to make the flowers grow.

- So how many years was that before you started The Poor & Hungry.

- I think I started that movie, it was called Melodies Surviving, and I think I started it in like 1995, right around there.

- Wow so it's right before.

- Yeah, and then I wasn't able to even develop the film because I'd run out of money.

So it just sat on my refrigerator for years.

The film.

And it's good that it wasn't developed because it was a bad film.

I was too much concentrating on the technical.

And then I started making the same mistakes on my next film.

So I wrote this movie, Poor & Hungry, which is the name of the bar, The P&H Cafe.

That's what the P and the H stood for.

And I remember I sent off this script to my dad, and he was really the one, and he was not in film.

He just loved film.

But he said you're gonna screw this up if you just try to make this technically like a big movie.

It should be intimate.

You should just shoot it on that camera you're filming your home movies on.

And that's when I started to make a mental shift.

I think before then, it was like actor follows camera, you put an X on the ground 'cause the focus had to be exactly perfect, and then on Poor & and Hungry, it shifted where it's like no, the camera follows the actor, and if they go out of focus for a little bit, then that's the kind of energy that you want, but you're not gonna mess with what the actors are doing to make it seem real.

And that changed everything in my world.

- And really, and the video I'm sure played a part in this, but the movie is very kinetic, for most of it, in the editing, and I think if you look back at a lot of independent film of that time, maybe it tends to be a bit more stayed.

But it feels so much more relevant watching it today.

And then also the choice to do black and white, I think it overcomes just some of the technical limitations with the video.

- Oh by the way, that was exactly why it was black and white.

I wasn't making an artistic statement.

It's just that I wasn't good enough to do color.

It really wasn't, 'cause sometimes things would get overly saturated or the reds would pop too much, and I remember, you had a button that you could push that turned it black and white.

It could be sepia, and it could be all these things, but you get it to black and white, and I was like, "Oh, well now it looks right.

"Now it looks like Memphis.

Now it looks like this world that I'm trying to do."

But yeah, even learning how to edit on it.

I tell people if you watch Hustle & Flow.

Hustle & Flow is about me making Poor & Hungry.

That's what it was.

I lived in a shotgun house on Benton Avenue.

We were all crammed into a small house.

I was building sets in my living room.

I could either edit or I could have air conditioning, but if I had both then the circuit breaker would pop out.

So there was a lot of those kind of elements, that I just turned it into a rap story, but it's really about us struggling to make this first movie when no one wanted us to make that movie, and I would even say that there was a lot of filmmakers around the time that were rather critical of me doing it on video.

And doing it this way, and I think also I had learned early on that a lot of the local filmmakers, I think, were tackling things that were maybe beyond the scope of what the tools they could do.

My story was kind of simple, it was a car thief that fell in love with one of his victims.

And I think I only had a total of about four to five characters in it.

And so that, if you look at Hustle & Flow is kind of the same thing.

It's not like you've got to have the big moment where DJ becomes famous and has a big concert at the end of it.

No, they're just trying to get one tape to one rapper at a party.

- Right.

- That's the big finale of Hustle & Flow.

Still kind of small, big stakes with a small action.

- Yeah, it's because we become so invested in these characters, these things that from a bird's-eye view might seem minuscule, they have all the weight.

- And it's very hard to explain to Hollywood people today that that's okay to do.

And I always go, "Okay, but remember that movie Rocky, he does not win."

I can't say that enough.

Rocky does not win at the end of the fight.

And they're like, "Yeah, but you know, later they made other movies where he wins."

And I was like, "Yeah, and they're never as good as Rocky."

Rocky is about, he loses and he finds the love of his life, and he finds himself.

And that's sometimes hard to explain to people.

That you can have those smaller wins that are huge if you set it up correctly, and you root for the characters.

- There's such an efficiency of storytelling in your films.

They just keep moving.

They grab you, and then you're there for the duration of it.

Which is just very enjoyable.

- Thank you.

I'm worried more and more that I need to connect to that guy that was younger and try to be better at storytelling.

I try to map everything out on these cards.

I have a system that I've used for a long time to write movies, and it helps me.

But usually when people need me to come in and work on a movie, the one thing that they say is that "We're missing some soul."

And I think what they're missing is kind of what we're talking about.

What's really the movie about?

What am I supposed to feel while watching this movie, and can I connect to the characters, and that's when I start to roll up my sleeves on a script.

- Well, thank you so much for talking with us today, and can't wait to see what you do next.

- Thanks, great talking to you too.

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