Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the latest edition of one hundred The Ed
Gordon Podcast. Today a conversation with actor Wendell Pierce. The
veteran actor has made a name for himself on television,
in movies, and on the stage. The New Orleans native
is an acting tour de force from the big screens
waiting to exhale two televisions, The Wire to his current
(00:45):
project starring as Willie Lohman on Broadway and the Arthur
Miller classic Death of a Salesman. This latest role, one
he calls the role of a lifetime, is one that
didn't actually start in the United States. It started overseas
in London. Yeah. I was first off of the role
(01:07):
to study it at the Young Vic Theater, which is
a major theater that does remountains of classic classic plays,
and got the opportunity to do it there. I had
never worked in London and it was something that I
always wanted to do it. It was forty years into
making really and then we've got an opportunity to move
to the West End, you know, which is the equivalent
(01:31):
of Broadway in London. Uh in the grace success there
and we closed with the hope that we would be
bringing it to New York, but we closed on January four,
and so there was a little thing called the pandemic
that happened, So that kind of pause. I think. So
while I did it at all of nineteen, um, it
(01:54):
is a three year hiatus really And now getting back
to the play. Uh, it's been a real um I
opening experience, a great challenge. UH, something that is a
high water market in my career and in my life.
UM and one of the things that an actor can
(02:17):
only dream of and hope for that challenges them. Uh. Emotionally,
it challenges them physically, A challenges you know, the ability
to just be an actor, to create a world so
strong that it induces behavior, the idea of taking on
what is an American classic? Um. And you know from
(02:39):
one of the masters, Arthur Miller, was it at all
daunting for you or was it just something you really
wanted to do? Absolutely, I would be I would be
a liar to say it wasn't daunting. I put twenty
four years it did his firm. I would no, I
can't pay my insurance. You can't eat the orange and
don't appeel away a man. It's not a piece of fruit.
(03:00):
As I always say, and the opportunity presented itself. Um,
you know, what football player wouldn't want to play in
the Super Bowl, you know, no matter who they're playing
against what, no matter what the odds, what musical performer
wouldn't want to debut at Carnegie Hall? Not only to
(03:20):
come back to Broadway, which is a great you know,
milestone and always whenever you get to do a playoff
broad on Broadway, but also to do this play in particular,
which had just a small group of men who have
played the role in the seventy year history. Five men
Lee Jacobs, George E. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennahe and
(03:44):
Philip Seymour Hoffman. So that is a very austere group
that I'm joining. So the pressure was beyond I also
think of another usteer group, which is men like Ozzie
Davis and Roscoe Lee Brown and Earl Himan, Sydney Portier
um who had denied the opportunity to play the role
(04:06):
because the ignorance of our culture and the prohibition and
cultural discrimination, um for the lack of vision to see
them in the role. And so I've been given this
great opportunity into those which great things are given to
(04:26):
great things are expected, and so that is a duntic challenge,
but I welcome the challenge. Here's what's said, to some
degree set in nine. Many of the issues that Willie
Lohman faces are issues that people face today. I thought
it was really interesting because there's an in this family
(04:50):
being black portrayed. Uh in this run. While race is
not spoken front and center, the idea of it is implicit.
It is implied there, uh, And I think it just
as an extra element, And I think it was great
that you could have easily changed it and put it
more upfront. But I think the idea of letting it
(05:11):
play out as it does and let the audience feel
it was brilliant. Yeah, because that that was uh intentional,
because we wanted to show how micro aggressions, along with
macro aggressions, institutionalized racism, institutionalized cultural expectations of racism. Um,
(05:35):
you are expected to be a second class citizen. You
are expected to accept things the way they are, and
if you don't, there will be consequences. And the slightest
things can express that. So many people come up and
ask us, oh, you change that, right? I don't remember
that people who are familiar with the play When I
(05:57):
am with a mistress, a white woman, I actually say,
and this is nty at this point, it's nine two,
because it's a flashback. I said to her there may
be a law. I think there's law in Massachusetts about
about us being caught together in this hotel room. And
(06:18):
people automatically assume we put that in there, and said, yeah,
of course we realized that that, you know, the racial
danger that was in that moment. You had to put
that in to make sure people knew. And I said, no,
that was in the play, right because at that time
being unmarried mar right. But you heard the racio implication
(06:40):
of what it would be like if a black man
is caught with this white woman. One year after the
Scotsboro Boys. And we know that the the incidents with
a black man and a white woman has been the
spark of so many dangerous violent outcomes in America. Also Rosewood, Um, uh,
(07:03):
you know it goes on and on in the Scottsboro Boys,
so many lynchings. Uh. And of course mtt till you know,
just the look or perceived whistle to a white woman,
uh causes death, right, And so just that implication she
has the line I hope no one sees me like
(07:24):
this in the hall undressed. And she's saying that to
two black men that she's leaving in this hotel room,
one being my son, who I now have endangered him.
And that is an implicit, uh, actually explicit threat. I'm saying,
if I walk out here, easily screen rape and you
(07:47):
would be killed. You know. So it's uh that we
wanted to make sure that people saw that was implicit
in the play. Here's what's interesting to me about the
Loman character character, and I wonder how it hits you
if you are a man of a certain age. Uh,
you can identify with that character in terms of just
reflection and where you are in your life and what
(08:09):
you would hope to be and where where you may
be in reality. They always, uh, you know, question whether
those two roads meet. I'm curious, Uh, you know, was
it cathartic at all? Did it make you reflect? Where
did you sit on that personally? Oh? Absolutely? Uh. You
can't do a role like this and not delve into
(08:33):
a deep self reflection. Uh. Look at your own life
disappointments you may have, the triumphs you have had. Also, Um,
if you live to be this age. Of course there
will be uh expectations that were not met, you know, um,
(08:55):
And so I tried to remind myself of that so
it doesn't said completely debilitate me. You know. I've looked
at my own life and realized, okay, um, I still
have opportunities to make choices that will be redemptive and
(09:18):
and rectifying. And and one is actually the creation of family.
You know, being on this career pursuits so much. I've
never created a family. I'm looking forward to two kind
of shifting gears and trying to do that, um. And
then also just missing missing people. You know. The one
(09:42):
thing that happened with Willie Lohman is in this day
and this play just takes a day. Um, you realize
that he's alone in the world. He's orphaned. He is
calling him the memory of his brother back is triggered
by a letter that he received that his brother's day.
You never knew his father as his father on so
(10:03):
early in his life. His mother in law died, he says,
a long time ago, and that's his immediate family. And
he feels orphaned. But what he didn't realize is if
he ever took the blinders off, he would see the
love of the family that he has created and he's
his two sons and his loving wife. Uh, and realized
(10:26):
that he was wealthy and love. You have an extraordinary cast.
And obviously Andre the Shields, you know a Broadway his
favorite there plays the brother. But I also you know
with note um, Sharon D. Clark, who plays the wife,
is extraordinary in that I would imagine the cast has
(10:48):
been able now to to get a rhythm and play
off each other. It must be I remember Sam Jackson
telling me that when you get a cast that is
really good, it's like a team that you play off
of each other and there's a hum if you will.
You're finding that absolutely, there's a chemistry that you almost
(11:09):
you become. You start to become a living, breathing being
a collaboration that creates this its own rhythm and heartbeat.
And so even the slightest change of a rhythm, you
get to play off of each other. Um. The great
thing about Death of a Salesman is the fact that
it's so layered, you know, flashbacks within a flashback, which
(11:31):
we come back to the reality and they go back
to the flashback and then come back. Um. It is
so layered with uh, um paradoxes, you know, and and
and the complexity that we're always mining uh the material
for more and more. So it's always feeding us. It's like, uh,
(11:56):
it's like an engine, a combust the boat engine. UH
went in my solice as a friend of mine. I
grew up with him, and he he wrote me, He's
on the road. He said, how is it going? And
I said, man, I am. I am shedding and swinging
at the same time. Setting where you're always kind of practicing.
The jazz musician is always setting. It's the equivalent of
(12:19):
you have created the work, you are now presenting it
to the audiences. You have the set chord changes, but
you get to improvise within those core changes every night
because you still have musical ideas and so you're always
kind of working on those musical ideas and those, for me,
the emotional ideas that can continually fuel the fire and
(12:42):
the engine of the play. And Sharon D. Clark has
done something that I think is um is historic really
because she has taken a role that normally can be
seen as a doormat of a woman who is just
tolerant of the toxics of of of Willie, and she
(13:03):
has made an emblematic of the strength of black women
in the face of so many obstacles, even within their
own families and communities, and how they are the lynchpin
of holding things together. And she has taken this role
and she has made it. Uh An equal to Willie.
(13:24):
Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name
was never in the paper. He's not the finest character
that ever lived. But he's a human being and the
terrible thing is happening to him. We have created something together,
(13:44):
um that you know, and my lowest points, I always
reached for Linda. I realized that the other day, not
even knowing what, not even conscious of it. Like in
my worst moments in the play, I'd literally reach out
to my wife physically and was It just shows you
how acting is that it creates you, create the world
feel strong, It induces the behavior. I wasn't even conscious
(14:07):
of that until like last I went, oh, man, every
time I'm at my lowest EBB, I've always reached for Linda.
I thought there was a beautiful thing. Wow, talk to
me about stage work for you. You know a lot
of actors will talk about Denzel told me once about
the excitement of Broadway for him, you know, I mean
(14:29):
known as a movie star, but he said, for me,
just the excitement of hitting that stage, you know, doing
a live play, the play between you and the audience.
You know, the energy you feel or don't feel any
given night. Yeah. Yeah, the audience in live theater is
another actor in the scene. You feel the energy they
(14:54):
give you and that you reciprocate and give a giving
to them. You feel when there's not a connection, so
you fight for that connection. That you get that connection
by the end of the evening, and it's always a thrill.
And then there's also um the idea that for that
(15:15):
particular night, at that place and in that moment of time,
it is only us, these few hundreds of people who
will experience this moment, and for that that is a
precious thing. I do not take that for granted. You know,
I'm going to the theater tonight, but that means nothing
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to the people who were there last night, nothing to
the people who will be there tomorrow, because it will
be that performance that they will remember, that they will
that will motivate people. I remember where I was when
I saw As You Like It in in Stratford with
Kate Nelegan. So whenever I see or here Kate Nelegan
(15:57):
and as you like, I remember that. I remember when
I saw Roscoe Lee Brown visit and read poetry in
New Orleans. It changed me. I was there opening night
for Uh James, Joe Jones and Fences and you know, um,
and those moments will take with us, memories will take
(16:18):
with us for every So that's why I always tried
to theater. I try to do a film, television and
theory every year. Um, the trifecta, I call it. I'm
a believer that most of us, no matter how old
you are or where you end up living the majority
(16:39):
of your life, many of us, most of us are
emblematic of the place that we were born. If you
grew up there, Yes, you are a man. You talk
about your relationship with Wynton Marcellus, so you are a
big easy man. Talk to me about what Nolans has
done for you. You know what you've taken from it
(17:00):
to give to the world. Oh yeah, I am. I
am a man of New Orleans, Uh, the northernmost Caribbean city,
the last bohemia, the city that cared for guys because
people don't care back and sort of las a fair.
We made a way out of no way from the
(17:21):
scraps off the kitchen table. With a little burnt flour
and oil, we concocted a stew known around the world
called gumbo. You know, so give me a little something
and I can scrape it up and put it together.
It is so emblematic of the American tradition of out
(17:42):
of many one. It is really expressed in what we
are most famous for New Orleans jazz, right that we
can take that African six of the bo bo bom
bump boh bump and that brass from Europe boompapa boom papa,
turned it into bobo bo bo bo bo bop jazz
(18:05):
where you actually have to honor the form of the song,
but within that you are free, Mr Gordon, to improvise
and play a solo and be who you are and
be an individual because the two can go exist. Be
technically proficient but free and all of that is a Verican,
(18:26):
a very American idea that people um can have order
but at the same time be free to live an
individual life. And there's no place in the world that
does that Like Neance. We swing We do that with
our food. We do that with our music. We sing
when we talk, what's going on? From from you, from
(18:49):
try right round? That's in the music. When you trade forwards,
that's what you're doing with the music. You are literally
talking to each other a musical conversation. And then we
when we speak to each other, we say, hey, you know,
no matter where you are in the world, I have
friends to say, Man, you cast from New Orleans. Man,
(19:11):
you'd be in an air voice. Hey, bropa, you know
all you have to student? You know him? Actually no,
but he's rubbing the wallets. That that is who I am.
That is who I am. All of that and a
little bit more. Your your love of jazz obviously comes
(19:31):
naturally from being from there. Um, give me a sense
of what music a means to you. But also how
that maybe rhythmic notion is incorporated in your acting. Oh yeah,
well it is. I learned how to do Shakespeare. I
know exactly the place where I was when I learned
(19:56):
how to do Shakespeare. I was in my first year
at Juliet. It was learning, and I understood on them
big pin chamber. I understood the meter, and I understand
what it was when it was first and when it
was pros technically, I knew all of that, but everything
was stilted and I could not be I just had
no nothing natural about it. And I went to see
(20:18):
a jazz musician at the village. Vanguard was like November
author Blife, who's a pretty avant garde sort of guy, right,
kind of free, and I remember the song even do
a little bit of boo be d right, it's really
(20:41):
hipp tune, right, And he was swinging and I kept
humming the tune in my head, and then he started
his solo and it's so low. As I said, he's
very experimental in alvant guard was uh and and as
he's solo, and I'm still humming the tune and I'm
(21:02):
just looking around the club because I can't get with
the solo. I don't understand it yet. And then at
one point he comes back to the melody and we
are exactly together, and I'm like, how could that be?
He knew? And then I realized, Well, I thought he
(21:24):
was being free and all over the place. He always
knew where the melody was. He always had the form
of the song, but he was free within it. And
that's when I realized that two can coexist, and so
then Shakespeare was open up to me. A text of
a script like Death of a Salesman isn't restrictive to
(21:46):
just the words that are on the page. You can
change it any kind of way and make it yours
and still on the form by saying all the words.
A perfect example, I have a speech where I'm encouraging
my boys, and Death of a Salesman they go up.
It's America, beautiful towns and fine upstanding people, right, the
(22:10):
finest people. That's the line. But I knew this was
a black man who was dealing with all of the
racism that he had to deal with. And when I
did the line, unlike any others who had ever done
it before, I said, America is full of beautiful towns
and fine upstanding people, the finest people. And you knew
(22:31):
immediately with just the change of it like that it
was the expression of some of the stuff that he
had to go through with these so called good people.
He's so called people, right, And that's the way you're
able to put your spin on it. And that is
jazz honor the form, to be free within it and
(22:53):
put your spin on it. Your improvisation, and then that
taught me how to act. The script is the form,
but then the way you present it is your personal touch,
your improvised improvisation. You're solo. I want to ask you
about Juilliard formal training and one of your trademarks your voice.
(23:21):
I note that you are the voice of Frederick Douglas
and the new PBS uh becoming Frederick Douglas. Um. One
can have a baritone or a deep voice, or a
commanding voice. Don't always have to be deep, but can't
always play with it. I'm I'm amazed at those like
(23:43):
yourself that can act with the voice alone. It is
a talent. UM. Talk to me about how you have
trained that muscle, if you will, Yeah, Juilliard. First, it
started at the New Orleans and of Creative Arts, which
(24:04):
was my performing arts high school and the Wallets, and
then continued on at Juilliard, and it really taught me, Um,
the physical aspect of all the things that produce your voice,
the breathing, your breath, you your articulators, your teeth, your tongue,
the movable articulators and the and the immovable teeth, and
(24:27):
the structure of your jaw which is combination of the
two and then the tongue, which is constantly fluid, and
the lips. Then the placement of breath within the head.
You know, literally, I tried to do things where I
hold I've come to a place where I can hold
my nose and at the same stop time keep my
(24:48):
voice because I'm making sure that the flow stays below
the nasal passage. Right. So if you grab your nose
in the middle of something and all of that you
hear at, you realize, Okay, I want more of the
flow to come below my nose. So get in the
habit of doing that. And that's a a bad trick.
(25:10):
I guess my teachers would be for me that's bounding
on that. But you know, it just makes you make
sure that you kind of not that names, just keeping
it relaxed below and not let it get into your
head voice where the air actually flows up and through.
So training, training is the best. How to warm up properly,
(25:33):
how to warm up your articulators. I'm from New Orleans,
so we love to drop our final consonance at all.
So I have to really work on my my ts
and d's and elves. My nickname at school was window right,
because I couldn't say when uh. Understanding the difference between
a dialect and UH, and a dialect and a accent.
(25:57):
The accent is when English is not your first language.
A dialect is when English is your first language. And
that's a very important distinction to make because people always say, oh,
you're from the South, though you have an accent said,
and that always put a demeanor. It had a demeaning sense.
And actually it's like, no, because of where you're from,
(26:18):
you have a dialect, which means you take the sounds
that we all make, and because of culturally or weather,
even you change it. For instance, it will be quick
the Southern draw as you go from the dry states,
where literally the draw comes from keeping the dust out
(26:38):
of your mouth. In Texas, how y'all doing you keep
your mouth closed? You don't open it too much or
whatever it is, right because you just don't want to
get nothing in your mouth. That's how it evolved. It
literally is the pathology of it. You go further east
and it's hot, it becomes human. It's the same sounds,
but then the mouth is more open. Oh it's hot
(27:01):
here in Mississippi. That's I got open my mouth I
got to get something, you know, that's how we talk
all of that. Then you go in between those two
and you go to New Orleans and you damn this
out like Brooklyn because it was the ports city, right,
So you had you had the consonants and different things
(27:21):
of the Africans, vowel and dif thongs of African languages.
The buzzy said, but uh, you hear those in African languages.
You combine that with the draw, and then you get
New all and baby like this. So you've got all
the residents and stuff and all that with the Southern draw.
(27:41):
So training is the thing that was along with I said,
I was gonna be brief, no man, that that's that's
extraordinarily interesting because I think I think of the people
in Detroit who have a drawl that is not as
heavy as a Southern draw. A true traditional quotes Southern draw,
but so many migrated roology, the pathology of that's exactly right.
(28:06):
That's exactly Chicago. In Chicago is even more distinct because
you could go to Chicago and you'll be talking to
academy zone. Oh, you're from the West Side. They'll say,
how do you know? Because you sound like you from Mississippi.
Is everybody from Mississippi went to the west side. Everybody
from Louisiana went to the south side, and so you
get hear the distinction just even within the city. Yeah,
(28:28):
that's crazy. Let me let me ask you about um
those kind of siminar roles you've had on on TV,
The Wire obviously you were on Suits, Ray Donovan, Um
trom May. Is there one that speaks to you more
than the other? I always asked singers, you know, what's
the one song, maybe not even your favorite, but the
(28:50):
one if somebody said, point to the role you want
to represent your career, what would it be? Do you
have one? Uh? Well, hopefully at the end of this run,
and it will be this, I hear you. Uh, it
(29:11):
will definitely be this when it comes to theater. This
is my defining role in moment. It's the collection of
them all. Um and I will always be remembered for
Bunk Morland and the Yre and that ain't too shabby
to be remembered for Willie Loman and death of a
Salesman on Broadway and Bunk Moreland and the Wire May
(29:35):
will be the one that people say, But if you
really knew Wendell. Would I tell folks just to be
able to say you have a defining whatever it may be,
is a prize within itself. It must be the same
way for you. I mean history everybody will remember when
(29:58):
you got the presidential interview, you know, and and I
tell you people, here's the funny thing, o J. Was
probably the most defining moment. It's the one that catapulted
me to a much larger audience, obviously, But the the
interview I'm asked most about to this day, of all
the interviews I've done, is the interview I did with
(30:20):
Tupac generationally, their kids that weren't even born when I
did it. Who know me, even though I'm much greyer now, uh,
you know, who know me from that interview. So it's
it's interesting to see, um, to your point, just how
the different kind of puzzle pieces come together. And for me,
(30:41):
when people ask me, it's not o J. It's not.
It's when I sat down with Mandela the first time,
you know, So I have I'm gonna watch that one
a day because I missed it. Yeah, man, I'm I'm
I'm you know, we've both been very blessed. Let's just
put it that way, right. Uh, talk to me about directing. Uh,
you know, I know you're getting into that. Is that
(31:01):
something that you want to continue to do. Is that's
something that you aspire to do? And could you ever
see the day where you're not acting anymore and you're
just directing? Yeah? You know. My first impulse is to
be a producer. Wow. I won the Tony Award as
a producer for Clive ban Park. I've produced August Wilson
(31:22):
on Broadway Radio, Golf and off Broadway Jitney. I have
produced some of the smaller films that I've been in.
I like the idea of putting really good material with
the creatives. You know, I would love to see that
script with that director, those actors. So I feel as
(31:45):
though the producing, the aspect of producing, is as creative.
I am now getting into directing, um, and I look
forward to that, you know. I look forward to that creativity.
And I do see the day where that and producing
maybe more than my acting career. One of the great
(32:05):
things about acting is you can do it until the
day you die. Right. One of the most siminar performances
for me was Jason Robots in Magnatolia, where he was
playing a man who had terminal cancer. When he the
actor had terminal cancer, so he was investigating life's journey
(32:30):
all the way until the end. And that's the great
thing about being an actor. But I will direct and
continue to direct and produce, working on a film project
now called Billy, putting together a couple of TV projects
that I'll be producing on and acting in. But um,
(32:51):
I think I'll always be remembered as an actor. Man.
I just want to salute you. You always from afar,
taking your craft seriously. I appreciate anyone who who does that,
whatever their field and their endeavor, and it's always a
delight to see you man, in whatever role you take.
(33:12):
I appreciate that very much, and the feeling is mutual.
I think you're one of the finest journalists we have
in America today. Thank you, brother. Another big thanks to
my man, Window Pierce. Death of a Salesman is on
Broadway at the Hudson Theater now one hundred is produced
(33:37):
by Ed Gordon Media and distributed by I Heart Media.
Carol Johnson Green and Sharie Weldon are our bookers. Our
editor is Lance Patton. Gerald Albright composed and performed our theme.
Please Join Me on Twitter and Instagram at ed L
Gordon and on Facebook at ed Gordon Media. I bur
(34:01):
up to