OnWriting Live: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”

By: Geri Cole

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Transcript

Geri Cole: You’re listening to On Writing, a podcast from the Writer’s Guild of America East. I’m your host, Geri Cole. In each episode, you’ll hear writers working in film, television, and news break down everything from the writing process to pitching, favorite jokes to key scenes, and so much more. Welcome to the first in our series of Black History Month live podcasts of On Writing. In these special episodes, we’re going to talk with black screenwriters who have each written amazing films about black icons. Today’s episode is being presented by the WGAE Black Writers Salon and I’d like to welcome my fellow Salon coachers, Rashidi Hendrix and Marc Theobald. Actually, Mark couldn’t make it tonight.

We’re very pleased to kick these talks off with Ruben Santiago-Hudson, screenwriter of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, now streaming on Netflix. The film, adapted from an August Wilson play, is set in 1920s Chicago during a recording session where tensions rise between mother of blues, Ma Rainey, played by Viola Davis and her ambitious horn player named Levee, a mesmerizing performance by the late Chadwick Boseman.

Santiago-Hudson is a versatile talent who has acted in many things, including Billions and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and also wrote the award-winning play and Emmy-nominated teleplay, for Lackawanna Blues. Now, please welcome Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Thank you.

Geri Cole: So I guess we just want to start off with talking about, how you doing? These are strange days. Have you been able to work? Have you been able to rest?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: I haven’t been able to rest too well, but I’ve been working a lot. I had a lot of projects in the works when this thing shut down and I continue to develop them and some writer jobs that I’m doing. And I picked up one more, which it’s time to put the breaks on now and just look at the directing jobs that I have ahead of me. So between the writing and directing and I have an acting job coming up on Broadway in the fall. So very, very busy. I need more rest. That’s not a complaint, it’s just I wish I could get more rest, but I’m very happy to be working.

Geri Cole: Yeah, absolutely. I feel the same, where it’s like, I’m always grateful for work, but I could use some rest. So I want to start by talking about the film. This film has been adapted from an August Wilson play of the same name. Can we just talk about what drew you to the story and the process of adaptation, what you decided to include, what you left out, and what your process was like?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: What drew me to the story, you know that I’m an August Wilson fictionado. I love August’s work. Any time I can have an opportunity to spend some time with him, with his brilliance and be bathed in his brilliance, is a blessed day for me. So that opportunity came through Denzel Washington and I was very excited to participate and do my share. And selfishly, I felt that I was supposed to be there, though you always suppose and think you should be there and then, 90% of the time, it doesn’t happen. This did happen, so I’m blessed to have that opportunity.

When you talk about what I left out, I tried not to leave out anything, but I had to leave out a lot to cut a two-and-a-half-hour movie down to a 96-minute, 94-minute movie. But when I say I tried not to leave out anything, anything that I took out in the melody, in the [inaudible 00:03:13] strength of his language, I tried to replace with visuals. And that’s motion pictures, that’s move making. How much story can I tell with pictures and how much story can I tell with words? And when you take a person like August Wilson, whose strength, the muscularity of his language, the beauty of his language, the authenticity of his language, the specificity of his language, you start removing that, that’s like taking the limbs off a skeleton, things look missing.

So what I was trying to make sure of is, because I understand the rhythms intimately, the way these people spoke, I understood August as a human being, as a friend, as a peer, as a mentor, that I could easily take a phrase out of the song and still have the melody. And that’s what I was doing.

Geri Cole: Wow.

Rashidi Hendrix: Was there a moment where you felt like, “I just captured August’s voice in this,” especially after you saw it on screen, you’re just like, “He’d be proud?” Was there just that moment, after you saw it actually directed and made and produced, was there that moment and that connection where you just had that kindred spirit that spoke to you?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: No, not really. I knew from the beginning that I knew August and his intentions and what he was about. I knew the work intimately. I had directed it. I had been in it. I knew the work. I just took the task. I stay so busy dealing with reality that I don’t spend a lot of time in anything other than what is. What is is that I did my job, I did the best I can do. And then, as a writer, once you do that, you turn it over and then you have to step back and, if you don’t step back, they’ll push you back.

So there’s many jokes about the writer. And as you guys continue to write, you’ll hear a lot of those jokes, which is blocking the writer, keeping the writer away because you are, for all intents and purposes, the authority if you come in the space. You wrote the bible that you have right there. Right here, August wrote the bible. My job was to protect that bible. And unfortunately, I had to be the editor. And since everything is pretty precious to me, I had to remove what my intentions and my desires of how much I loved and how much was precious and say, “How do I keep this whole intact [inaudible 00:05:22] dynamic?”

So no, I didn’t shoot the jumper and just watch it go in and keep my hand up like that. No. I wrote it and I was satisfied. I was satisfied about 10 drafts earlier. They weren’t and that’s writing. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have cut a word, but then we would have a two-and-a-half-hour movie. But I see white movies that are three and four and five and six and seven hours, but sometimes it’s difficult for people to believe that what black people say is important or what they have to say is important. So you’ve got to go by certain rules.

And that’s why I love the theater, because I’m the editor. I don’t cut nothing. When people say, “Why didn’t you cut that play?” I didn’t write it. Why am I cutting it? But in film, they’ll be saying, “Cut it, cut it, cut it.” So it’s a difficult thing, all you writers that are listening. So you’ve got to be willing to compromise, but you do have a voice in the theater where you wouldn’t compromise near as much, but without finance is null and nil, nothing. So you’ve got to finance your art.

Geri Cole: And you have brought me to several points I’d like to follow up on, but I’m going to start with you and George C. Wolfe have collaborated in theater before. What was it like working with him to bring … Like you were saying, you didn’t just leave the hand up to bring this piece of theater to the screen.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, however they want to tell the story. The story is I asked for George and I called George and asked him to be there; “Please, help me out,” because I needed his … He’s meticulous, he is an incredible visionary, he’s a wonderful director, and then he was a dear friend and I knew that he would understand my sensitivities about August. And even though he fought with me like any director would, that he would still understand why it was important to me to celebrate August, not remove him or disappear or distance myself from his work, but to incorporate his work and that I’m standing on that work. And the building has already been built. I’ve just got to move the furniture around and make sure it’s comfortable.

So I needed somebody like George. So I immediately, when I got the position, I started putting my bid in for George. And I called him and connected him. And they tell a different story, but I’m telling the story because, listen, same with Lackawanna Blues, he commissioned it at the public. And so when it came to be a movie, I said, “you should be directing it.” In all honesty, writers, when we write, we write like directors. We write a film we see. So they were saying, “Who you want to direct it?” I said, “Me.” But they didn’t say, “Who you want to direct it?” Even though they’ve got to do many more and I think that words have been swirling around, do I want to write anymore? And I said, “When do you ask me, do I want to direct?” I am a director and I know the work intimately, so that would be nice, but Hollywood sees you do one thing great and they’ll ride that horse. That horse won that race, come on.

Rashidi Hendrix: Yeah, that’s what they do. Was that process difficult to, I guess, to go from a theatrical script to a screenplay script? Was it difficult to translate it, in a way?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Yeah. People come to theater to listen to great writers’ work and to see it there and to be in the space and live in the space with the people that are doing it at that time, to see it happen in real time. And so theater is more wordy. Have you seen the Chekhov movie? [inaudible 00:08:54]. Theater is wordy. And because we do love the poets who are playwrights, who become screenwriters, and then some of their poetry has to get lost. So it is difficult.

Geri Cole: I actually would like to talk a little bit about some of the themes in the film, which I feel like, especially if you’re talking about the words that you had to lose and replace with images, two of the things that really stood out to me were the oppression of the heat and how, visually, that played throughout the entire film, especially specifically in the Ma character of just watching her melt. And it was truly affecting for me because I felt like you could still see that she was in this oppressive heat, leaving a piece of her soul, trying to find joy, trying to connect, and it just was a beautiful metaphor, I thought. And then also the imagery of the door and Levee constantly banging up against that limitation.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, it’s extensions of August’s ideas. I mean, the heat was George’s idea. George wanted to be more combustible. So how do we make it more combustible? Let’s move it from the fall to the summer. And I said, “Cool.” Like I said, George is a visionary. And it’s not much that he would do that doesn’t have a meaning. But on the same token, I’m a visionary. So August talks about the door. Levee says, “That door, that damn door, what [inaudible 00:10:08] before?” So then I thought, “Why does he mention that?” So then the metaphor of opportunity being there and then behind it is nothing but another wall is the metaphor that, collectively, we thought would work.

But it’s even lines, like one of the first lines that [inaudible 00:10:27] says is, “That trumpet player, is he going to be here?” He says that early in the play, but we never realize why he asked it. So we had to … something added onto the end to see why he asked that, because the trumpet player had something he needed, wanted, was going to take. And that’s a metaphor for America. When someone is black and excellent, they want ownership. So once you realize that and you know that, then you’ve got to figure out, “Okay, what’s the negotiating of it? What do I get from that?” Well, hopefully I answered some of that.

Geri Cole: Absolutely. Actually, and I feel like you led me perfectly to another specific question about that, which was that there is that theme of the black artist up against these white producers. And Ma’s character, where they’re harassing her the entire day, and Levee’s character, where they explicitly take advantage of him, and obviously not much has changed, unfortunately. How have you navigated that, with trying to reclaim your power in that dynamic?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Give me some clarity on that again. Say that again.

Geri Cole: The dynamic between … And this is making an assumption, but I imagine you have come up against some sort of obstacles in Hollywood, as a black artist. How have you navigated trying to own your power in those moments and how would you advise young, black artists to do the same?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Always. Listen, the whole business is a compromise. Unfortunately, for us, since we have to always seem to have to take our ideas to someone else to get them realized, that’s the tragedy. And here I am, over four decades into this business, and still doing that and it’s frustrating. I was talking to my son today. He’s electric sound at TPS, Tyler Perry Studios. And I was saying, you look at the Billie Holiday movie, you look at the Aretha movies, you look at the Five Bloods, you look at One Night in Miami, you look at Malcolm and Marie. We have all these films under a black banner. We have billions of dollars coming our way, but we took to Netflix, we took to Hulu, we took to Amazon. They said, “We have the way. We’ll take care of you.” And they did. And guess what they did? They get the bucket, the bucket that’s full and running over. And we get the Range Rover and the house in Malibu.

So it’s like, [inaudible 00:12:57] you can see a brick wall behind … I live in New York, so I run up against Hollywood, even from New York, but I understand that I do make them money. And if I don’t make you money, I make whatever you did have critical acclaim in another level. My name is kind of synonymous with a certain quality and integrity. So people will throw me in something or say, “He’s in it,” and people say, “It must be serious.”

So I understand that, so I negotiate in that way. I understand my value, but also I wish that we had a banner. Why aren’t we coming together, saying … I just don’t get it. And it’s unfortunate that I’ll retire and move on down the line and be standing on a soapbox still preaching, saying, “Could’ve been us. Why didn’t we have a summit and say …” I ain’t going to name the names. They’ll probably be mad at me. I’ve named them in a lot of different other … Why don’t we figure out what’s the most important stories we want to tell in the next decade? What do you want to tell, what do you want to tell, what do you want to tell? Okay, I can’t do them all, but I’m going to get behind you on this one and I’ll be behind you on this one by loaning you my studio, by renting you my studio, and we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.

Where is the Harlem Renaissance, y’all? We did roots twice, we did slaves twice, and can be kings once, kings and queens once. And people do call me, “I hear you keep saying you want to do the Harlem Renaissance. Come on, let’s do it. I got $50. We’re going to do the Harlem Renaissance. We’re going to find parts.”

Geri Cole: Well, that sounds like a rallying cry if I ever heard one.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: So I’ve been rallying it for 10 years. Finally, a network company, a company and said, “Let’s do it. Two hours.” And I said, “[inaudible 00:14:38] somebody that will do that, but it ain’t me. So let me go get an acting job, but I’m not writing Harlem Renaissance for two hours.” So maybe y’all will get it done when I’m gone. “Rub kept saying let’s do this.” But people usher me into the huge companies and they say what you want to do, but that ain’t why you’re there. You’re there so they could tell you what they want you to do, but in the end, it’s just protocol to say, “Well, what do you like to do?” Harlem Renaissance, five two-hour movies. The whole thing, 10 hours television, epic television, all that music, all that intellectual revolution, all that sexual revolution, all that poetry, all that style, all that chaos. Give me 10 hours.

Geri Cole: Let’s get some financing.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: They tell you, “That’s $200 million.” Yeah, $200 million. Ain’t that what you spent on Band of Brothers?

Rashidi Hendrix: Ain’t that what you spent on Game of Thrones?

Geri Cole: Oh, more on Game of Thrones.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: [crosstalk 00:15:48]. But why do I have to go to them and ask for that? We can. Yes, we can. We can.

Rashidi Hendrix: And speaking on that, we saw a lot of networks, so-called, and I’m using air quotes for those who are listening, reach out and say, “Hey, we’re interested in black programming. We’re interested in black voices.” And it gave a lot of writers inspiration, but it didn’t necessarily move the bar on the infrastructure of Hollywood for black writers and creators. So I’m curious to see what you thought about that because I just love how profound you are in talking about this subject.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, there are some really interesting production companies that are either black-led or cooperatively black-led; one of the partners is black and one could be white or whatever, at least a strong figure in it is black. Now, I’m excited about that idea. We can always do projects, make movies, write pilots. It’s how do we distribute them? Where is the platform for us? Where is our platform? And every time a black company comes up, if they don’t spend 50% of their time shake dancing and rapping …

Listen, there’s room for a black National Geographic. There’s things in the motherland, in Africa, that we haven’t even talked about. There’s archeology that’s being done, there’s animals to be explored, there’s villages that are being built and scientific things being made and chemists. There’s not a black dating game. There’s not a black National Geographic. We can do all kinds of stuff, but Hollywood is clearly built on finance, on money; is this marketable? And the myth that we are not marketable, which we have refuted since time and memorial, still lingers. But if we look at the trillions of dollars we spend in entertainment … Lackawanna Blues, for instance. Lackawanna Blues had more viewers than any other cable television movie that year.

Rashidi Hendrix: Which is one of my favorite, I have to say.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Thank you, but no one would say that. I had to say that in the meetings when I was selling my next thing, when I was pitching my next thing, when they were saying no and I was saying, “Well, Lackawanna Blues had the most viewers,” and I would put papers in front of them. I had allies who gave me statistics so I could say we had more viewers than the Paul Newman mini-series, than the Pink Panther, than Warm Springs about President Roosevelt. We had more viewers, this little black lady in Lackawanna, New York.

And our viewers didn’t totally get counted because, when I was staying up at Harlem, about three people had HBO, but 27 people were watching it. So did we really count the numbers? Has there ever been any statistic about black people in America that has been authentically real and specific and true? No. They don’t know how many people came over here, how many kings and queens and scientists and agriculturists they brought over here and turned into slaves. They don’t know how many died in the Middle Passage. Our census right now don’t know how many of us in this country because sometimes we don’t want to be counted.

Rashidi Hendrix: Right.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: You get what I’m saying? So if they count that I had the most viewer, and I know for a fact, particularly in some of them big buildings, three people have HBO and it’ll be 60 people watching it. Those are the things that you’re finding, as a black writer. So I just recommend that you just write your stories, tell your stories. It’s getting better. And the power structure’s not going to crack. They told me straight up one time who invented Hollywood and who still runs Hollywood and that was talking a lot of trash about what I wanted to do. They said, “Let me tell you something, son. We’ll hire you. You’re talented. You make us money, you could make some money, but we run this. So don’t come telling us who we’ve got to hire and how our crews got to be a certain color and how your director got to be. Do you want to do this?” They’re not afraid to tell you what they want to tell you. They just do it differently now.

Geri Cole: Wow. That actually leads me perfectly into a question that I always like to ask on this podcast, is about the idea of success. I feel like success never looks like what you think it’s going to look like. And as a successful man, what do you consider success? What feels like success to you?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Find your peace, find some satisfaction, but never find contentment. Never be satisfied. Find some satisfaction and then you have success. When you felt that you have done some of the things you want to do, because you’ll never do them all … I don’t give a damn how wealthy you are, big you are. Make sure you spend a certain amount of your life doing things that you want to do. So even if you want to be a writer, if you are a writer, if you’re writing 100% of the time what other people want you to write, how could you be happy? How is that success? Because you’ve got a nice car and you’re content and you’ve got a retirement fund, is that success? If that’s your success, then that’s fine.

That’s not necessarily my success. My success is how much of my life have I spent doing things that made me happy, that made me have some satisfaction there. I told some of the things I wanted to tell and say some of the things. I’ve led down the paths I wanted to lead down. I’ve mentored as much as I could. I built as much as I could. Ruben Santiago-Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center is in Lackawanna, the Black Arts Intensive is in Brooklyn, both started by me. I mean, that don’t give me satisfaction. You have to find out if you can spend your life doing at least 10% of the work that you do is just what you wanted to do. It don’t pay.

That 90% has got to take care of that 10%, but at least take the time to say, “I want to tell the story about my great uncle, who was the first man that had a car dealership in Detroit.” Tell it. We need to know that. I need to know if your great grandfather … if they took his land and lynched him. I need to know if your great uncle was the first scientist who graduated from Northwestern University. I need to know that, if you uncle was on the board at Howard and was a scientist in Vienna. You know what I’m saying?

So tell it. I ain’t saying it’s going to pay and somebody’s going to buy it, but if you tell it, then you’ve got to reap some satisfaction from that, “I did this story,” because a lot of what I’ve written is not going to even be realized and people are going to really appreciate it until I’m gone. That’s the truth of it. The best play I ever wrote and the best movie I ever wrote is sitting … the movie’s sitting in people’s offices and the best play is sitting in my computer. Nobody will do it. That’s the best play I ever wrote.

Geri Cole: Oh.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: But because I’ve got to go to other people to get the door open. And then, when my people say, “We’ll do it,” yeah, but I need a set and I need a director and I need designers and I need … “Oh, you just don’t want to do it on soapboxes?” No.

Geri Cole: Real money behind real projects.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Just do it right. Our standards have to be elevated. And to elevate what we accept as … I don’t like the word brilliance, but what we accept as the highest level of integrity of our work has to be elevated. We can’t accept mediocrity just because it makes money.

Rashidi Hendrix: One of the things that I’ve always admired about you, Ruben, is that, back in the day when I first found out about you, I always knew you were an amazing actor, but when I found out you were a writer, I just thought that that was one of the things that just made me always admire you. I wanted you to speak on just the dual commitment in these times, especially for black performers, in creating multiple revenue streams for themselves, as writers, because I feel like, when I think about it, you’re probably one of the most successful writer/performers that I know that I can think about. And I’ve always admired the fact that you’ve had this amazing career as an actor, but you’ve had an equally amazing career as a writer also. And I always preach to writers just to find those multiple revenue streams that can work for you. And it’s always going to be in the craft and providing a service.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, I appreciate it, man, but the thing that I’m most in demand for is my directing. My acting is what put me in people’s living rooms and put me in people’s hearts and souls. And my writing has introduced me to the world, but my directing is what people are calling me for every damn day because the leadership is what they miss. They miss somebody who’ll stand for them, stand with them, and protect them and take care of them, and also that has a vision and is willing to stand in that gap between demand and his people. And that’s me.

As I look at my next two years, I have twice as many directing projects, whether they’re musicals or straight plays, movies and television, things that are lined up for me already in mainly directing. The thing about directing is people don’t see that. So I only can write one or two things a year, top. Once I wrote two things, then I peaked out. That’s the loneliest part of what I do. And I’m a people person. I feed off energy of other human beings and I like the smiles, the laughter, the disdain, the anger, the combat and the disputes. I like human beings and so writing is lonely for me, but that’s how I got to get it done because you’re in your own bubble and it’s nobody’s fault but yours if you don’t get it done.

So I try to be a moving target, because being outspoken, I can be closed at any spot. They can close me down. They’ve shut me down as an actor. They’ve shut me down as a director. They’ve shut me down as a writer. I move to the next one. Oh, I’ll never work again as an actor on Broadway because I said a few things and did a few things, then I went to the directing. Then they say, “Oh, we don’t want him to direct no more.” I’m telling you, [inaudible 00:25:51] blocked me off Broadway, just blocked me. So I said, “Okay, I’m an actor. I make people money.” I went and did a couple films, went and did a TV show, came back [inaudible 00:25:59] while I’m doing a TV show, I’m writing something. Sold that to somebody, then they came out and then somebody said, “Man, did you see this script?”

So like I said, the best film I ever wrote is sitting on a desk. And they said to me, “We’re going to turn it into a musical. Do you want to do it?” I said, “No, I wrote a movie. I want to see that movie happen.” “Oh, we’re going to give it to so and so,” gave it to another writer. She couldn’t crack it as a musical. So they went back and said, “Well, we’re going to turn it into a TV show. We’ll give you some credit, but it’s not a movie anymore, so it’s not yours anymore.”

Geri Cole: Wow.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: It’s like [inaudible 00:26:27]. “Okay, but we’ll let you direct one when it gets bought.” I said, “Okay. Well, thank you for letting me direct one.” So nothing happened so far, but it’s a great movie. People still talk to me about the movie. They say, “Man, that movie’s good. Who’s doing it?” Well, I wrote it for Will Smith 10 years ago.

Rashidi Hendrix: What’s the title of the movie?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Never read it. It’s called Vegas 55.

Rashidi Hendrix: Vegas 55. Okay.

Geri Cole: You do wear many hats. Do you feel like you’re one thing first? And how did you first start as a performer and then lead into writing and directing?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: I started as an actor first, but I was directing when I was 17. So the one thing I am is a storyteller. That’s what I am. And I just have to find out which is the strength and strongest and where I’m in demand at that moment to tell the stories. So my goal is to be able to write my own pilot and direct it. That’s about ownership, ownership on two different hands, because you don’t want to go down in life and everything that you’ve ever done belongs to somebody else. It just don’t make sense to me. I mean, it’s got to be that way in the beginning, but it don’t have to be that way later on. It just doesn’t.

Geri Cole: Yeah. I think that’s what we all hope is true. No, I do. I want to talk a little bit, actually, also about, since we’re talking about acting, the incredible performances in this film. I just want to take a moment to honor them. They’re all amazing, but also especially, obviously, Chadwick Boseman’s performance. As an established actor, how do you think that actually informs you, as a writer?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: I’m an actor, so I act everything. Every role that I ever wrote, Ma Rainey to Sylvester, I play them all. So when I want to hear how the scene goes, I just play it. I run it. And I’ve sat down with Denzel and he’ll say, “You can’t cut that. That don’t make no sense. Dah, dah, dah, dah. How are you going to test it?” “Give me a minute.” Then I’ll read it out loud to him and he’ll be looking at me, “Man, you know this thing in and out.” I said, “Yeah, yeah. Can I get an audition?” “No, we talking about writing, man.” I said, “Okay. All right, Denz.”

Geri Cole: Do you feel like the acting muscles help you, though, to feel the characters and feel the world?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: As a writer, I do play it all out. I see if it works, if I can make it work. And I understand that every actor can’t make things work that other actors can make work, but I want to see if I can make it work first. Make it work, then I want to turn it over to somebody else. And if they don’t believe it, then I’ll demonstrate to them. George told me one day, “Yeah, you could do it. You could do everything. You could do it, but that don’t mean that the next person can do it.” I said, “Yeah. Well, [inaudible 00:29:04] do it.”

But as a director, I’m informed as an actor, as well, because I always treat my actors the way I’d want to be treated. Even just having Felicia right now and directing her in this voice, this narration, I tell her, I said, “When you want to self-correct, self-correct. Then you’ll stop me from interrupting you. You know when it’s not right, but if you do go past and I know it’s not right and you know it’s not right and you don’t stop, I just hit my microphone and say, ‘One more.'”

And if she don’t say, “Is there anything you need there?” which she usually don’t because she’s so damn incredible, usually she’ll know what it was. She’ll say, “You’re right, you’re right.” But if she says, “What did I need?” then I would say, “This word was off. It’s not, ‘it’s,’ it’s, ‘the,'” or I would say, “Make that more personal. A little more warmth there. Slow down. Easy. Set that two words out.”

And so you see the engineer looking at us like … I’ll say, “I need to hear boom. Leave out a space.” She was having trouble with a paragraph and I said, “Write that down in three places.” She said, “Any suggestions?” I said, “Here, there, and there.” She said, “Got it.” I was like, “Bad sister, bad sister.”

Rashidi Hendrix: Some of those monologues in Ma Rainey were so incredible. Just me looking at it from that perspective, and I’m sure it was done in breaks and things like that, but it just looked like Chadwick just went crazy and just knocked it out. I mean, that just blew my mind. And it was just beautifully written and performed and it was just a great piece of art.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, August wrote an amazing play. That’s the reality. He wrote an amazing play. I was trying to protect it. I was trying to manage. I was managing and protecting it and managing the story. And I had to write very few words. I wrote scenes in at the end and other things in the middle and the way things are done, created spaces that you can’t see in the play, but I didn’t do a whole lot of words. It was me managing those words, but it took a lot of managing, moving things out of context, putting Dussie Mae in the bathroom. And maybe August would be … I’d be more powerful about something. I’d give Dussie Mae more strength and room with Levee. I didn’t make her a victim. I made her taken when she wants a taking. And then he flipped … how the power kept flipping, that’s not in the play. That’s my director head.

But you take an individual like a Chadwick Boseman who, in his own right, if you take the acting away from him, as a human being, he’s extraordinary. He’s a person who walks in the room and who you know understands who he is, what his responsibility is to the community, what his responsibility is to his art, what his responsibility is to the world. And so that’s a heavy burden for any man to have because, once you realize exactly who you are, it’s intimidating to other people who don’t know who they are. And so he grasped that role unabashedly and unafraid and just said, “All the damage that Levee has faced and received that I have to express, I’m going to mix my damage up, too. I’m going to put my scars and his scars and mix them up together and let them out.” That’s what it looked like to me.

And so you’ve got to give it up when a person … I always say this, as an actor. And when I teach my actors, I say, “Listen, if you don’t leave something in that room, in that performance that’s scared to you that you didn’t want to leave, but that you had to leave, if you don’t do that, we’re losing. We can’t win. So you have to take something that you have been guarding, cherishing, scared, hiding and release it. Share it. And that’s going to make people look at you a certain way, but you build it back. The sacrifice you made …” August Wilson used to talk about, “Take the finest gold and make the proper angel.” So you’ve got to have the gold there. You’ve got to drop the gold. That’s personal stuff. That’s hard stuff.”

So Chadwick, and then you take Viola. Viola knows this work intimately. I did her first Broadway play with her that was August Wilson’s play, Seven Guitars. She was extraordinary then. Now, she just grew, grew, grew and grew. And there’s no more incredible actress than her. I mean, there are people on her level. If you really want to get down to it, ain’t nobody … Once you get to a certain level, it gets like … You’ve got Regina King and you’ve got Halle and you’ve got Taraji and you’ve got Angela Bassett. I mean, you get to a certain level, Alfre Woodard. Do you go beyond it? No, you get to that level and that’s royalty. In London, they knight you, in England. In America, [inaudible 00:33:35]. Those actors are extraordinary.

And then you take the ensemble, onstage actors. Glynn Turman’s been around, just seen it all, veteran. And you’ve got Colman Domingo. Colman Domingo, as a writer, director, and actor, as well. And you have Michael Potts, who I put in his first August Wilson play on Broadway, which won the Tony for best revival. And then you got the young actors. There’s the white actors, as well, all theater actors. That’s George because he knows there’s a process to theater actors. They’re not in LA taking acting classes, doing that great scene.

When I audition for plays in LA, they do scenes great because they go to classes and learn how to do scenes, but they don’t have the experience of walking on stage and doing a whole play in one evening. So that’s when they start falling apart. I’ll be like, “What’s going on here?” New York actors, they do plays, off off Broadway, off Broadway, workshops, readings all the time. They understand the process of a full arc of a character, and not just from a book, because they have to do that all the time. But I’m not saying New York has all the talent because there’s some bad motor scooters in LA, incredible. There’s no monopoly on talent on either coast, but it’s the process that’s a little different.

Geri Cole: I do want to take a few audience questions. And you perfectly set us up for, do you think writers can benefit from taking acting classes?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Absolutely. You’ve got to know how an actor thinks and how best to communicate with an actor, person that’s dealing with taking something that’s on paper that’s inanimate and making it real, put blood in it, put hurt and sores and wounds and heart and hearts and faces and smiley faces on it. You’ve got to learn that, for one, but to be a really, really good director or writer, a lot of it is instinct, a lot of it is training, a lot of it is leadership.

When I did a directing workshop recently, they asked me, “What’s the first thing I should learn if I want to be a great director?” I said, “Learn how to listen.” Learn how to listen not only to the play, listen to the actors. They’ll tell you. And challenge them to the truth. All you want to do is get to the truth. No matter if you’re telling a lie, you’re telling the truth. So you walk in and somebody says, “Somebody hit my car. Did you hit my car?” “I didn’t hit your car.” “I thought I saw … You’ve got the red car. Did you bump into my car?” “Yeah, I’ve got a red car, but I didn’t bump into your car.” You know what I’m saying? You done bumped it three, four times. You’ve got to tell the truth, even a lie.

Geri Cole: There are a few, actually, other audience questions. It’s all advice, mostly advice. Any advice for someone who is writing their first script and does not have any formal education or background in writing?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: First of all, you’ve got to find out what story you want to tell and just start telling it. Structure can be taught. Good storytelling cannot be taught. You’re either a good storyteller or you’re not. You can take a Robert McKee writing class and get structure. You can pick up two books and learn how to write a script, but are you a good storyteller? Did you tell a worthy story? And people always ask me, “Well, I wrote this film. I wrote this TV show. What should I do with it now?” I said, “Find out who it’s important to.” I’m going to leave a pause after that.

You write something and, immediately, you say as a writer, “I’m going to take this to Amazon. I’m going to take this to Disney.” Is that important to Disney? You think Lifetime wants to see a movie about men that are soldiers? They buy women’s movies. Lifetime does. You’ve got a dynamite movie about a woman? Talk to Lifetime. So USA does what they do, FX does what they do, Netflix is all over the place. You know what I’m saying? They snatch, snatch, snatch, snatch, but that don’t mean they snatch nothing of mine. You know what I mean? So you’ve got to find out who it’s important to.

I’ve got a film now that I’m writing and I found exactly who it was important to, made a one-stop shop and went straight to them. They were like, “Yeah, that’s right down our alley.” “I know it. I researched you.” Participant Films does what they do, Plan B does what they do. You’ve got a story, find out who it’s important to. That’s who you pitch it to or you’re wasting your time. That’s a gem. I just dropped a gem on y’all.

Rashidi Hendrix: I was sitting here thinking about it while you were saying, I was like, “Wow.”

Geri Cole: Yeah, because also it’s a waste of time and energy and spirit. It’s like, you’ve got to find your people, I suppose. I do want to ask you a little bit, because this is a writing podcast, about your writing process. Do you have a ritual? You said it’s a lonely time. Do you want to talk a little bit about it?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Well, everything I write is based on what I know and there’s research. I didn’t know about the first integrated hotel in Vegas and I just started reading. Once I start doing research and looking at documentaries and reading and listening to music, then I’m in. And I just inundate myself with as much knowledge as I possibly can until I can’t hold it no more. Then I’m writing.

Now, with August, it’s a little different because we were close friends and we were in the trenches together for a long time. So I needed his presence that I thought was the most important. So a lot of the things that he had given me in our time together, from opening nights and different things … because I had a lot of opening nights with August, a lot of opening nights. I have harmonicas, I have books, I have cards, I have ink pens. He collected pens, he collected boxes, hat from a play I did with him. I just pulled everything out and I did what we do …

He always talks about African traditions in us and it’s what’s in our DNA. So I did something that was African. I did libation. I said, “August, I’m going to need you. I got Denzel over here, I got George Wolfe over here, I got Netflix over yonder, and I need you right here on my shoulder.” And so I called him up. And I know it seems a little ethereal and a little odd, but we African people. It’s in our DNA. So I did something African.

He had a ritual where he used to always start writing with clean hands. He always used to tell me, “Yeah, I wash my hands first. If I ain’t got nothing but a cup of coffee, I pour that on there, rinse them off.” He wanted to start with clean hands and I was like, “Clean hands, I never thought about that.” So you find out what works for you. There’s no one way to make anything work. So every time I write something, it’s different, but I guarantee you, anything I write is going to be as much research as I possibly can.

Rashidi Hendrix: That’s amazing.

Geri Cole: I have one more question because we are running out of time, but this is another question that I like to ask a lot of folks who come on the podcast, is are there any hard one lessons? And by that, I mean, is there anything that you truly appreciate now that you wish you had appreciated earlier?

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: I wish that I would’ve been smarter when I had my first successes when I was younger, when things were important to me, like having a new car, a Mercedes, or dating a supermodel or things like that. I wish I would’ve understood the value of the dollar more and what was most important to me then because, if I can get my first fortune back, that’s what I’m saying. [inaudible 00:41:08]. But that’s foolish youth. I wish I could’ve been more cognizant of the power of how difficult it would be to make money and keep money because, when you don’t have money, then you have to say yes to everything.

So I had to say yes to a few things early on that I didn’t … I never did anything that was embarrassing to my family, to my mother. I never disappointed my mother, even up in heaven, but I did things that I was saying, “Damn, why am I here? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with that actor. I don’t want to be with this director. I don’t want to be …” So if I’d have taken care of that money the first time, I wouldn’t have had to say yes.

So it took me awhile to get a home and a wife and a family and just say that’s what’s most important. Your writing and your art is part of the sustenance that you need to survive because you have to to be a human being and that’s who you are and that’s what God gave you, but you need more than that. You need more than a meal. You need more than your writing and your art. You need a support system. And that made me notice, hey, if don’t nobody want to see Ruben act or write or direct, I’ll come home and get love. You know what I’m saying?

Geri Cole: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I think that’s actually a beautiful place to end, on the things that truly matter. Thank you so much for talking with us today. I’d love to film, but I was crying during a lot of it. Yeah. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: I want to say this, though, in closing. Remember the things that are most important to you. Everything ain’t important. And those things that aren’t so important, you can negotiate them and navigate them the way you want, but the things that are most important to you have no price on them and they’re not negotiable. And your integrity should be in the middle of that. Certain things have no price. So find out what’s important to you because people are going to try you. I guarantee you, you will be tested. And there’s some place you’ve got to draw the line. You can’t draw the line everywhere, but those things that are scared, hold them dear. Protect them. Cherish them. They’re yours.

Geri Cole: Well, thank you for that. That’s important to hear, I think for everyone, but especially creative individuals who are trying to figure out how to make a life. So thank you again, Ruben.

Rashidi Hendrix: Yes, thank you. I really appreciate you, Ruben. This was exciting for me to have an opportunity to talk to you in this way and just to hear your words is fantastic. And thank you very much for your art and your contribution to the culture. And we’re going to look for that Vegas project.

Geri Cole: I’m looking for the Harlem Renaissance series.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Vegas was done. They hired me as a writer, I wrote it, I turned it in. I’m all passionate about it and they said, “No, we’re going to do this with it and then you could do that.” That’s why the things I write now, I’m producing or they don’t get done. I ain’t handing nobody else, say, “Here you go.” Now, if you hire me to write something, that’s one thing, but I’m going to pick and choose what I write. At this point, it’s four decades plus. If I don’t get ahold of it now and say [inaudible 00:44:20], they be like, “Damn, we can’t get it. Nah, that stubborn rascal.”

I mean, you can’t say no if you ain’t got options, so you’ve got to make options for yourself. Even if that option is driving a truck or painting a wall or babysitting, you need the option. It could be teaching at the university, but you cannot say no if you’ve got nowhere else to turn. If you say no to a [inaudible 00:44:40], you turn around to a brick wall. I’m going to say no to you. The grass might not be as green as you’ve got it over here, but at least I’ve got a little bit over here, the sand I can sit on. You can’t say no if you don’t have options.

Rashidi Hendrix: That’s right.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson: Find your options, y’all. And thank you. And keep working your wonderful art. I’ll be looking for you guys’ films and TV shows.

Rashidi Hendrix: Absolutely.

Geri Cole: Well, thank you. That’s it for this episode. On Writing is a production of the Writers Guild of America East. Tech production and original music is by Stockboy Creative. You can learn more about the Writers Guild of America East online at WGAEast.org. And you can follow the guild on social media @WGAEast. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and rate us. I’m Geri Cole. Thank you for listening and write on