Anthony Mackie on His Upcoming Films: Mackie has three movies, including Crossover, opening in August/September 2006. He also recently wrapped filming his role in the football movie, We Are Marshall, based on true events. Asked how it feels to have so many films hitting theaters so close together, Mackie replied, “It’s gratifying because three of them started off as independent movies and the one big budget movie is coming out at the end of the year, so I feel like everything is working towards the pinnacle which is We Are Marshall. But I’m just happy about it. I’m very happy about my position in this business. I feel like if you work with good people, you’ll do good work. I’m very proud of the work I’m doing and the people that I work with. I feel like there’s a lot of talented cats out there that aren’t given the same opportunity, so I’m very fortunate. One day, it might pay off.”
Mackie Compares Training for Football to His Crossover Basketball Training: “Football is all about explosiveness. It’s all about coming off the ball. Football is just the most rigorous training I’ve ever been through. I’ve never been pushed to the limit like that by anybody or anything. That was a great experience.
McG, I feel, is one of the best directors out there. You would think that somebody that directed Charlie’s Angels 1 and 2 wouldn’t be able to direct actors and tell a story and be able to do a subtle movie like We Are Marshall, but his ability, I feel like his talent so far outweighs the stories that he tells that he gives the actors the opportunity to just sit with it and develop characters. And his passion is infectious. He excites the people around him. A lot of directors can’t do that. Directors have to be great storytellers so for McG to sit you down and tell you a story, he tells the story to the audience the way he tells it to the actors. It excites you because you realize what he’s going to do with this movie and if you don’t want to be a part of it, don’t be a part of it. But I feel like he has the Midas Touch when it comes to filmmaking.”
Sadly, the real man Mackie is portraying in We Are Marshall passed away in 2001. “He was an amazing man. I met his family. I spent Easter holiday with his family and just talking to people. I’ve never met a person that everybody had so many good things to say about him. Most people, it’s like after you pass away, ‘Oh, he was a good man. He was okay, he was okay.’ But no, people went out of their way to come to me and tell me about this guy. It’s just been a huge honor to let him live again.”
On Playing a Drug Dealer in Half Nelson: “When I met with Ryan [Fleck, writer/director] and Anna [Boden, writer], I was so impressed by the short they had done. The greatest thing about the script was there were no stereotypes. This was a script [that seemed like] just a true story of true people who had true existence. I didn’t want to bring stereotypes to that. I didn’t want my character to stick out as the one boring stereotype.
The thing about it is if you look at it, in the hood, drug dealers were not bad people. Every time I tried to do something wrong, it was a drug dealer that ran me home. It was a drug dealer that gave me money to buy shoes. It was a drug dealer that dropped me off at school. Those were the guys that took care of the hood when nobody else would. When everybody else turned their back on the hood and was like, ‘Eh, just let those poor people suffer among themselves,’ it was the drug dealers that really looked out for the kids and took care of the parks and gave us places to play. That’s when everything took a turn for the worse… But when I was growing up, it was all about respect. We respected our elders.”
And Finally, The Long-Delayed Release of Haven: Writer/director Frank E Flowers’ feature film debut, Haven, is finally hitting theaters in September 2006 after having its release date pushed back a few times. Mackie says he’s eagerly awaiting Haven’s release. “I had a great experience shooting Haven. Bill Paxton is…I’ve been a fan of his forever. I feel like there’s this young actor who’s the breakout star of Haven. His name is Victor Rasuk and he was in Raising Victor Vargas. Watching him work and seeing this young talent come of age, it’s kind of like Shareeka Epps in Half Nelson. It was just a great experience and Frankie really took that, as a first time director, really took that project over and made it his own and told the story he wanted to tell, so I was very happy about being a part of it.”
