Don Cheadle Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

Are you Tony's Stank?

Yes, this is,

this is Tony Stank.

You're in the right place.

Thank you for that.

[Interview] Is there an Avengers group chat?

Yes, there is.

Who's the most active?

Probably Ruffalo,

probably Mark.

[clears throat]

What are you doing?

We don't do that here.

[upbeat theme music]

Hotel Rwanda.

[indiscriminate yelling]

Get out! Get out!

You work at the Hotel Diplomat?

No, I work at the Mille Collines.

I knew nothing about what had happened in Rwanda.

Terry George, who directed it,

reached out to me.

I read the script,

I thought it was amazing.

He said to me in my meeting very upfront,

I need to get this movie made.

I have to get the budget.

Right now, they're talking to me about Will Smith

or Cuba Gooding Jr.

And I'm going to make this movie with whoever

gets me the budget.

'Cause it's a story that's too important,

it needs to be told.

And I said, 100%,

I would love to help you produce it,

even if it's not me who's gonna get the role

because I agree,

this is a story that needs to be told.

But ultimately the role came my way, thankfully.

And I started to dig into the research about it.

I saw a Frontline piece about Rwanda that Paul was in,

just learned through Terry and also other members

of Paul's family.

And that's sort of how we went into it.

When you're portraying a real person,

you're trying to find where your spirit and their spirit

kind of meet,

and the things that you have to take on from them

and the things that you have to bring that are of you

to them and you to it.

And somewhere in the middle is where that new,

it's not you,

it's not him.

It's some amalgamation of the two of you

that you're trying to find to just tell the truth

of the story.

And that's the most important thing is to get

to the truth of it.

And to not do some sort of an imitation or an impression.

We were with Paul a lot during the filming of that movie,

but he was a great resource obviously,

which was kind of intimidating to play somebody

who's sitting right there.

But ultimately, I was very glad to have him there

the whole time.

We knew that after Paul came back from driving on that road

he needed to have a visceral moment,

but we didn't know what it was going to be

or how it would be expressed.

And so this went on for weeks.

And then finally one day he said,

I think we have to shoot it.

And I said, I think it needs to be something just simple.

It needs to be just simple.

I said, Let me just come back and see blood on the tie

and we'll just shoot it in three scenes.

See me get the suit,

see him washing off the blood,

and then see him tie the tie and he can't tie the tie.

And something very simple is that he can't tie the tie

takes him down.

And we did it and we shot it twice and it was two takes.

And I think we used the first take.

It was not scripted.

We just knew that something needed to happen.

We had survivors that were in the movie that were extras

in the movie,

just talking to them about the realities

of what had happened and their experiences.

It's not just a movie.

You're walking back into a traumatic,

traumatic moment in history with these people

who are still dealing with it daily

and will never be over it.

So no,

it wasn't something that you just put down and walk away.

I still talk to this family now.

That movie sort of launched a lot of my own personal work

with activism in and around Darfur and Sudan.

It had a lot of reverberations

past just being a movie.

[upbeat theme music]

Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The committee would now like to invite

Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the Chamber.

Rhodey.

Hey, buddy.

Didn't expect to see you here.

Look, it's me,

I'm here.

Deal with it.

[Interviewer] It's famously known online

how you Aunt Viv'd Terrence Howard for the role of Rhodey.

I Aunt Viv'd him?

I did not move Terrence out of a role.

They had decided that that was not happening.

And it was an open part.

And I was at my kid's laser tag birthday party

and they called me and said,

This is what's happening.

We're giving you the offer.

If you don't say yes,

we're going to the next person.

This is gonna happen very fast.

So they said,

Why don't you go ahead and take an hour

and decide if you wanna do it.

It was a six movie deal.

I was like, In an hour I have to decide?

What are the other movies?

They're like, It's gonna be these Avengers,

it's gonna be this many Ironmans,

this is what it is.

So, you kind of have to say yes or no if you in or out.

Like what's the trajectory of the character gonna be?

Well, they're like,

we don't know any of that,

but this is what it is.

So, you've got an hour.

I said, I'm at my kid's laser tag birthday party.

They're like, Oh, take two hours.

Take two hours.

So, we played laser tag for two hours

and I was talking to my wife and we just kind of

thought about it and talked to my agent

and tried to get as much information as we could.

And we just took a flyer and said,

Okay, we'll do it.

We don't have to do this, Tony.

You wanna be the War Machine?

Take your shot.

Put it down.

You gonna take the shot?

Put it down! No!

Drop it, Tony! Take it!

[electronic explosion]

I done some special effects work before that.

And acting to tennis balls on top of a sea stand,

it's a lot to get used to.

There's no bigger platform and no bigger special effects,

toys and bells and whistles and stuff than Marvel

of course.

But ultimately, you're still ultimately trying to do

the same thing.

Always.

It's create believable circumstances for your character

to step into inside your own head so that you believe

what it is that you're doing.

And then the audience can believe.

[machine gun firing]

Hopefully the favorite one that I'm going to do

is Rhodey's movie we're gonna shoot.

I think in every successive film,

he's becoming more and more outta Tony's shadow

and becoming his own person.

But I still think we haven't really figured out

who he is and really dug into that.

So, that's what the movie is for.

It was gonna be a series,

now we're gonna do it as a film.

Armor Wars.

So, I'm looking forward to that.

It's been like 12 years now,

which is bananas that from that moment till now,

we've been doing it for so long

and it just keeps expanding and growing

and these universes keep folding in on each other

and different characters being introduced

and relationships popping up.

So, I haven't seen any scripts,

I don't know where it's headed,

but I'm excited about the potential.

[upbeat theme music]

The Ocean's trilogy.

So unless we intend to do this job in Reno,

we are in Barney?

Barney rubble trouble.

Big ensemble.

Everybody had to play their position

and everybody had their specialty.

It was a lot of grinding on an accent that

I've been both vilified and praised for.

All right, Chips.

Hang on to your nickers.

[explosives igniting]

Nothing was real.

We weren't really blowing stuff up.

Sure, there were some pyrotechnics and controlled things.

Most of that stuff was just movie magic.

Steven knows always exactly what it is that he's gonna do

and how he's gonna do it once we're going.

He has a plan,

but he's able to adjust and move with the plan.

When we came back to do the second film,

we hadn't seen each other for a long time.

We hadn't all been together.

We were just reuniting.

So we were just milling around for an hour

and then we realized,

oh wait, we're actually here to shoot something.

And we all stopped and took our attention to Steve

and he was like,

Are you guys all where you wanna be?

We're like, yeah.

He's like,

All right, go to lunch.

And we came back and there were marks on the floor

and camera positions and lenses and moves

and all different color chalk.

It was like a beautiful mind on the floor.

He had choreographed the whole scene.

You've gone right out of your tree,

my son.

He's mad.

It's madness.

Yeah, it's crazy.

I love it that the second movie is the one that people

will just unabashedly walk up to you and go,

Yeah, I hated that one.

That one sucked.

It's like, Cool.

You just said that to my face like I'm not a person,

but all right, thank you.

But that was actually for us,

the most fun of all of them.

When we're in Italy,

we stayed at the de Russie Hotel.

We had the whole sixth floor to ourselves

'cause we really couldn't go anywhere.

Paparazzi is an Italian word.

We really were kind of sequestered,

but they were able to give us that whole floor

and all of our families were there.

So my kids were there and Matt's kids were there

and we just like toured Europe in this big group.

And it was just a lot of fun.

Everybody just had a lot of fun together.

[upbeat theme music]

Devil in a Blue Dress.

Hey do we shoot the son of a bitch, Easy?

You're not gonna shoot him?

I had worked with Carl Franklin,

the director before,

he done an AFI project I was in,

so I came in and I was just in his head,

stuck in the same age,

I was 19 years old to him,

he was like,

You're not Denzel's contemporary.

This isn't gonna work.

I'm 10 years younger than him.

But I came in and read and he was inspired

and had Denzel come in and I read with Denzel

and we had an instant chemistry and the rest is just

kind of history.

Tell me what's wrong with you, man.

Don't you ever grab me when I got a gun in my hand.

Shit.

You got blood on my coat, Easy.

It's a damn expensive coat.

Well we both come from a theater background

and both had a very similar way of working

and both really were interested in creating these characters

and this relationship and digging into what our history was

and how we understood each other and the shorthand

that we had.

Obviously, I was impressed and a little intimidated at first

to work with Denzel,

but once we got on set and just started doing,

it was just a couple of actors coming to work.

You just said don't shoot him, right?

That's right.

Well I didn't,

I just, I choked him.

What?

Well, how am I gonna help you out

if I'm, if I'm back here fool round with him now?

Easy, look.

If you ain't one to kill,

why'd you leave him with me?

That line is just hilarious that there's a person

who's dead and it's your fault 'cause you left him with me.

Just the logic of that,

I don't know how that can't be darkly funny.

I think it wasn't to play it for laughs.

I think the humor just came out of the situations

and Mouse's perspective on things,

which for him was just a matter of fact logic.

I'm a killer.

You leave a dude with a killer,

he's gonna kill him.

Like that's on you kind of when you think about it.

And it was something that literally we found

in the audition.

It just kind of went that way and it became something

that just was their relationship.

All right.

Oh, look here.

Now, I'll cut you in for half

'cause I know you's too big a fool to take your chef

and that white girl yourself.

Alright.

I think that year was kind of a watershed moment for me.

That movie did get a lot of attention

and a lot of critical attention.

So that was probably for a lot of people

where they became aware of me.

I had done a lot of movies that year

and just started the ball rolling as a feature actor.

[upbeat theme music]

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

This is dope man.

I'm just gonna kick back here for a few days.

Let somebody else do all the work.

Excuse me, young man.

In this house, everyone carries his own weight.

[audience laughing]

Too easy.

There was a lot of gangster movies during that time

and if you're a young black actor

and you could be in a gangster movie,

that was a thing.

But then there was a lot of people going like,

Why are these the only kind of movies that we can do?

I didn't know any of them personally.

It's the first time I had met them.

First time I had met Quincy,

the first time I met Will.

Obviously, I knew he was a rapper,

I knew him from that world,

but I didn't know anything about his acting.

I thought the part was gonna be fun

and something just cool to do

and just to work with this new talent who was super green

and was mouthing our lines while he was on camera

mouthing the lines that we were saying.

So, he had to get up to speed.

But it was a lot of fun.

Hi.

[audience laughing]

Hi.

That's the one person actually that I did know

before the show.

It's fun to work with your friends and it's fun to be

in an environment like that where everything

is just like new and popping and we just had a great time.

And then after I think third day of rehearsal,

they came to me and they said,

we want to do a show around you.

So there was a pilot that we actually shot

called In the House that never went to air

and it never became,

so they later kept the name.

It was a completely different concept and everything,

I wrote the music for the intro and all this stuff

and it was gonna be on right after Fresh Prince.

And so the show went the way the of the dodo bird.

But that was gonna be an interesting sort of back-to-back.

[upbeat theme music]

Boogie Nights.

You're not being fair,

this isn't fair.

This financial institution cannot endorse pornography.

Stop saying that.

Quit saying pornography!

Why are you doing this to me?

I'm an actor.

Please, please,

I'm sorry.

Carl Franklin directed Devil in a Blue Dress,

had met Paul and known him and said,

This dude's wild.

You gotta meet this dude.

He's a young cat,

he's the most confident, cocky dude I've ever met

and he wants to talk to you about this movie.

And I said, What's the movie?

And he is like, It's 'Boogie Nights.'

It's about the porn industry.

I was like, Oh, my parents are still alive.

I can't do that.

And he said, Oh, you should meet him.

You should meet him and see what you think.

So we went to a deli and as advertised,

he was very cocky,

very self-assured.

And was like, If you say no,

you're gonna really be disappointed that you didn't do this.

So I think you should,

I think this is something that you should do.

And so I went back and told Carl,

Yeah, this dude's a trip.

And he was like,

Yeah, but I really have a good feeling about him.

So I took a flyer and said yeah

and I went to work with him and it was great.

We had a great experience.

[Buck gasping]

A lot of blood. [laughs]

That was a crazy scene, yeah.

And I think Paul just had a very strong vision

about how he wanted that moment played.

And obviously it's an insane moment,

but that focus,

that push into the money and that push into Buck

and he's like,

I just wanna see all of your dreams,

the stereo store and being finally having the opportunity

to be the person that you want to be and establish yourself

and all of that just communicated in that push.

And in his face as he's drenched with blood

and brain matter.

It was crazy,

but it's the kind of stuff that Paul's great at.

I've been very fortunate to have some great ones

where these characters are very full

to work with very good directors who know how to bring that

all to life and create sort of the sandbox

and let you play in it.

And Paul was very collaborative,

although he had very clear ideas.

He was open to how you wanted to bring stuff

and the ways you wanted to bring stuff.

So, it was just very creative and that cast is amazing.

It's a lot of just great actors and just a great environment

in a movie unlike any movie I'd ever seen

and or heard of until that time.

[upbeat theme music]

Of course, Captain Planet.

Let's spruce this place up a bit, huh?

Okay.

Ha-ha.

Well, the Funnier Die team,

I had done one of their first Drunk Histories

with Will Ferrell playing Frederick Douglass.

And then on the set of Oceans I think,

all the guys were talking about,

what we really need and what really doesn't exist,

and it's a shame that it doesn't,

is a ball spa for men.

So I pitched this ridiculous idea for Sacks West,

was a ball spa,

and George Lopez did it

and Cedric the Entertainer's in the clip

and Ray Romano and Joe Montanya and Haley Joel Osment

all these idiots came together to do this thing.

And I said,

Okay, well while you guys are doing this stupid one,

we have this thing called 'Captain Planet,'

which we wanted to do.

Would you like to do it?

I didn't know what Captain Planet was.

They're like, oh,

he is like, Captain Planet's animated,

he's gonna save the earth and you did all this stuff

for the environment.

You're the goodwill ambassador for the environment program.

We think this is a great fit.

So I read the thing,

it made me laugh and I was like,

yeah, so let's do it.

So I'm sitting down in the makeup chair

and they start to come up with this blue face paint.

I was like, What's that?

They're like, Well, it's Captain Planet.

I'm like, I don't want to do that.

And they're like, Well, this is how Captain Planet looks.

And they showed me the picture of him.

I was like, That's ridiculous.

I don't want to do it.

And I almost left.

I don't know how they talked me into doing it.

Somebody talked me into doing it.

So, I did it and immediately regretted it after I did it.

But then I saw it and it made me laugh.

So, I thought it was pretty funny.

And now it's ridiculous how many people talk about

that character.

I can't let you do that, Captain.

[electronic beam whirring]

[electronic explosion]

Anybody else wanna go green?

I mean they were just like,

what's the craziest thing,

how can we end this in the craziest way that we can?

So let's have him be like the good guy,

and be the guy that would be your hero on Saturday,

but he's messed up in his head.

That Captain Planet was very messed up, clearly.

Remember, turn off the faucet between usages

and recycle those plastics or else I'll turn you

into a fucking tree.

Captain Planet, motherfucker.

[upbeat theme music]

Crash.

In LA, nobody touches you.

We're always behind this medling glass.

I think we missed that touch so much

that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.

He's a very cynical,

a character and a very seemingly disaffected and burnt out

kind of a cop who has a mother

that he is very disappointed in,

drug addict,

a brother who's a criminal.

Like he's just in this broken family.

The dad ain't around.

He's a very broken dude, I believe.

I promise you.

I promise I'm gonna find out who did this, Mom.

Oh, I already know.

You did.

One of the best moments for that character in that movie

is after his brother is killed,

after he discovers that his brother's killed

and has gone to his mother's house prior to that

and bought her all the food and brought all there groceries

that she says as they're en morgue,

the last thing your brother did was brought me groceries.

It was the last thing he did.

Like saying to him like,

he was the good kid and you're the bad kid

and that he doesn't correct her

and he just takes it and he just gets broken some more.

He came home.

Did you know that?

My little boy,

when I was sleeping,

he brought me groceries.

It was a tragic character.

And the movie,

a lot of people had a problem with that movie

because they sort of took it,

I think they missed the broader point of the movie

in some ways,

which is, in my opinion,

not to be taken as literal and in some ways

is more allegorical and a lot of what-if

and sort of sliding doors,

situations with these characters

bumping into each other's lives and crashing

into each other's lives in these ways.

Yeah, another great ensemble cast,

low budget,

grind,

one of those movies that you show up

because you just want to tell the story.

It's not about let's all get paid.

It was just really, really good cast

and really solid filmmaking.

[upbeat theme music]

Traffic.

Sure I can't offer you something to drink?

I can offer you a joke.

You wanna hear a joke?

I got, I got, I got a joke.

I got a joke.

Come on, bro.

It's just a joke.

Let me tell one joke.

Can I, I'm gonna tell you a joke,

okay?

All right.

Why a hurricane named after woman?

I don't know.

Because when they arrive,

they're wet and wild.

When they leave,

they take your house and your car. [laughs]

Again, amazing director,

Steven Soderberg,

he called me and said,

I've got this other movie I'm gonna do.

It's not exactly a trip tick,

but it was kind of three different looks

at the drug trafficking.

And it was based on a UK series.

And he was just like,

I want you and I just see you and Luis Guzman as partners,

three different styles,

visual styles,

bridging that all together,

having these characters move in and out

of each other's lives.

It was just really a cool experience.

Another really cool experience with a lot of great actors.

And Luis and I became really good friends after that

and still are in each other's lives today.

[Luis] Their whispering,

their whispering.

Hello?

[Luis] I can't hear it.

I know,

the fucking bug's too far away from the room, man.

I told you it's halfway to the kitchen.

We're not gonna get shit.

They're saying something.

Sounds like they're conspiring to conspire.

You know, I could feel the live vibrating from that home.

[laughs] I don't think she's in on that, man.

Come on.

I dream about this.

I have actual dreams about this,

about busting the top people,

the rich people-

[Both] White people.

I know.

One of the joys of the job is that we get to learn a lot

about a lot of different things and we get to inhabit a lot

of different characters and get to kind of stay in school.

Get to always be a student of people and a student

of different genres and just a student of the craft.

It's one of the most fun things about the gig,

getting to play,

make believe and things that we were doing

is that we all did as kids.

But with the best toys and the best circumstances

and best props and best other play actors

playing around you.

So it's always something to look forward to

and why the job just never gets old.

They're coming this way.

[speaking in Spanish]

They're passing me now.

If you look at the scene where Luis' character is killed,

it doesn't make any sense on film.

It's two blocks.

We could use the fresh air.

You know?

I've been stuck in that piece of shit hotel room

for two weeks.

I don't give a fuck.

Let's just stop standing around.

I'm gonna walk 'cause I want walk,

not 'cause he wants me to walk.

It's emotional.

My character is destroyed.

He's lost his partner.

This scene doesn't make any sense.

But you are with those characters and you want,

you're invested in the characters.

You're invested in their emotions,

you're invested in the story or invested in their journey.

So when I ask people about that scene,

nobody's ever batted an eyelash,

but when I go through it,

they're like,

Oh yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

And I said, Yeah,

and I talked to Steven about it and he said,

Right, it just goes to show you if you've earned

the audience,

you can do a lot because they're invested in the characters.

[upbeat theme music]

White Noise.

Noah does very interesting movies,

and this is a huge departure from the kind of movie

that Noah does,

both in size and scope,

except for sort of the interpersonal character dynamics.

And still, it's a movie about characters

and about relationships,

but it's wrapped in this huge,

big dramatic undertaking of this event that is happening

that is impacting the Gladey family and all the residents

of this town.

What happened?

Kadzakis, my rival is no longer in the land of the living.

He's dead.

Lost in the surf off Malibu.

It's a farce about death.

I think it's really is what it is,

is a commentary about our inability to control

our circumstances.

And at a time like today,

it's a very interesting time to have this film come out.

Mid-elections and COVID and the Supreme Court

and January 6th.

Everything is just sort of looming and making us

have to deal with over and over and over again,

the shifting sands under our feet.

I think it's a very timely moment for this movie

to come out.

Now, I have a feeling about mothers.

Mothers really do know,

the folklore is correct.

Hitler adored his mother.

He was the first of Clara's children to survive infancy.

Elvis and Gladys liked to nuzzle and pet.

They slept in the same bed until he began

to approach physical maturity.

They talked baby talk to each other.

Hitler was a lazy kid.

His report card was full of unsatisfactories.

Gladys worried about his sleepwalking.

She lashed out at any kid who would bully him.

Gladys walked Elvis to school and back every day.

She defended him in street rumbles.

But Clara loved him.

So David and Adam and Noah myself

just worked that moment out.

We knew that we wanted it to be like a performance piece,

that it wasn't just going to be two professors lecturing.

We wanted it to feel like a dual.

We wanted it to feel like a dance.

We wanted to feel like some big moment that for Murray,

my character,

specifically wanted to sort of bring more attention

to himself and bring some sort of dynamism to his lecture,

his Elvis lecture,

that he needed to like work in a little Hitler

to like really spice it up.

The supermarket is a waiting place.

It recharges us spiritually.

It's a gateway.

Look how bright,

look how full of psychic data waves and radiation.

All the letters and numbers are here,

all the colors of the spectrum,

all the voices and sounds,

all the code words and the ceremonial phrases.

The supermarket is the place where

you wanna fight for normalcy.

And I think it's a real commentary on,

like you said, consumerism,

in some gross ways,

our desire to have instantaneous comfort

and immediate calming effect on us.

This is a very American concept.

It doesn't exist in most places around the world

in the ridiculous amount,

in the ridiculous way that it exists here.

But also, I think the movie is kind of a love letter

to the eighties and a love letter to eighties filmmaking

in many ways and Spielberg kind of feel in some ways.

It's got a lot of different genres that it's incorporating

in this movie.

So, it's a big swing.

Noah took a really big swing

and I think that's kind of expansive and really fun.