0:05

good afternoon and welcome to the concrete cowboy press conference i’m joined vicente executive director

0:11

and co-head of tiff and i’m so glad to have you all here today for this discussion of concrete

0:17

cowboy here we are on day 4 of tiff 2020 and it’s been wonderful so far another

0:24

notable sale to mention is the film pieces of a woman sold to netflix and we had a lovely surprise appearance

0:31

by halle berry via facetime on shamir anderson’s phone last night at

0:36

the premiere of hallie’s own film bruce that was amazing hi everyone i’m cameron bailey the

0:43

artistic director and co-head at tiff it’s been great to see films like pieces of a woman and wolf walkers and no

0:50

ordinary man getting such great responses from audiences and critics right now we’ve got another

0:56

great one conversation with the creative team that made one of my favorite movies uh all year

1:02

really concrete cowboy we’ve got the stars of the film idris elba caleb mclaughlin jarrell jerome lorraine tucson and mill

1:09

prattis we’re also joined by producer and famous director lee daniels and

1:15

director of this film ricky staub we’re grateful to all of them for being here today and we’re going to learn today about

1:21

black cowboys about philly but how you make a film that moves people this much

1:27

this is a unique exploration of male relationships set within the context of black cowboy subculture

1:34

moderating today’s conversation is kathleen newman brayman kathleen is a toronto-based writer and

1:40

producer she has produced many high-profile shows like the social e-talk live at the oscars the iheart

1:48

radio mmvas and crave original series cravings the after show her writing has appeared

1:55

in laini gossip cosmo l cordroid magazine and the kit she’s currently the senior writer at

2:02

refinery29 canada and a frequent culture commentator so thank you and enjoy

2:11

thank you so much hello everyone good afternoon thank you cameron and joanna for that really nice introduction i

2:19

am so honored to welcome you to the press conference for concrete cowboy directed by ricky staub

2:24

this stunning film as cameron just so eloquently put it tells the story of family reconciliation

2:30

amidst one of america’s most unique subcultures a generations old world of black horse

2:37

trainers on the streets of philly at its heart it is a story about the fragile relationship between a father

2:42

and son and its soul lies with the cowboy culture black cowboy culture and it is so uh

2:49

beautifully captured that world it is my pleasure to introduce some of the film’s incredibly talented cast and cute crew

2:57

and before i do that um if you have questions to the left of your screen you will see a chat box

3:02

please drop your questions in there okay this incredibly talented cast and crew in his

3:08

directorial debut please welcome writer director ricky staub

3:13

concrete cowboy producer academy high ricky um a caterpillar

3:19

nominee the esteemed elite daniels and then the cast who give uh

3:25

performances that uh you know you will be thinking about for a long time performances of their careers

3:30

a man who needs no introduction idris alba and there we go caleb mclaughlin like

3:35

you have never seen him uh the one and only lorraine cousin real life cowboy jamil

3:41

mill kratis and then emmy award winner jerel jerome welcome everybody thank you for having

3:49

us hey everyone how you doing i can already tell backstage that you

3:55

guys had fun making this film because you’re all um

4:02

yeah there was a little ribbing going with ricky backstage um ricky ricky i actually want to start

4:09

with you because i read that you discovered the black cowboys of north philadelphia

4:14

one day while you were looking out your window at your office and you thought that you were hallucinating

4:20

tell me how that moment led to you making this film and adapting greg mary’s novel yeah so it

4:28

was a striking image my company i have an office based in north philadelphia actually less than a mile

4:34

from fletcher street and i heard the music first and then i saw

4:39

this cowboy in basically a horse and buggy but it was all huge rims uh big bright red we actually

4:46

made one for the film or remade it but yeah it was a very striking image to be in the middle of this neighborhood

4:52

and to see a guy with a with a horse as a black cowboy so i actually ran down and met him i

4:59

can’t remember to say who it was and i’m surprised no one just claimed to be that person when we made the movie

5:04

but uh he was the first one that really introduced me to that culture and actually

5:10

looked up just did some google searching i found greg’s book but this was a long time ago like probably 2012. and

5:17

so i just kind of filed it away and it wasn’t until much later in 2017 where i i met

5:24

eric miller as one of the cowboys who introduced me to mill eventually i was speaking in court and eric had

5:31

been newly paroled and told the judge that he was he had already bought a horse and

5:38

so yeah it was crazy uh we just struck up a conversation he had seen the short film i made

5:43

i invited eric and mill and a bunch of the cowboys to my office and we chatted about putting this film

5:49

together so yeah that’s where it started it’s been a while journey since then

5:55

well congratulations i mean the film is spectacular and it really does immerse you in this world that you

6:02

know truthfully i knew nothing about um lee you were from philadelphia how much did you know about the fletcher

6:09

street stables before you came onto this project and talk a little bit about why this story is so important to tell

6:33

i’m gonna field that question over to the other producer on the panel then um oh here we go okay sorry lee continue

6:41

i can hear you no am i here yes you are it’s very difficult to silence lee

6:47

daniels i don’t know how you do that did he recover

6:54

all right let’s do this let’s just do it is

7:02

i was blown away by the story the story just took me to you know ultimately all of my movies are

7:08

about family black family and um i was blown away by this father and son

7:13

love story and uh you know i have my own issues with my father and it i just uh it touched me it

7:20

touched uh it touched us a place in me that i wish that uh

7:25

my father and i could have uh sort of reconciled the way that these characters do in this film

7:32

and so i was moved by that i was moved by philadelphia i was moved by black cowboys because look okay i’m in

7:40

black cowboys what is that about uh and um and then i was shocked you

7:47

know because i didn’t know that uh i saw ricky’s short film

7:53

and i did not know he was white and i had a and i and i was like oh this is this is

7:59

he knows how to handle a camera this cat knows how to how to how to evoke feeling

8:04

he knows um he’s a director and so when i found out he was white i was like

8:11

oh okay okay and uh i pondered and then i said

8:17

i’m in i’m in was there um hesitation there go to idris and uh

8:26

lee that kayla’s right for me that ricky is like yeah oh i’m sorry

8:32

no that was it it was just what maybe they’re hesitating

8:38

yeah it was for a quick minute but then you had to really think about it because i was going i was out

8:45

and then i thought i prayed and now this is ridiculous i’m in this cat knows what he’s doing

8:51

and uh and so i you know then i opened myself up to him because

8:57

not only was he doing something for what was he telling a story that was important to tell

9:02

but he was also in philadelphia hiring people that um the making of this film as is

9:09

is as powerful as the as what you see and and i think that’s why it’s so

9:14

strong and jarrell can speak to it uh firsthand because he’s part of the

9:20

fabric of what this uh what he how how um ricky seamlessly

9:26

um integrates the world of philadelphia’s and philadelphia hoagies and

9:34

pineapple soda into into the cinema and it’s uh it’s rare so i i am i’m

9:42

really proud of it i’m proud of all the actors that are in it too yeah as you should be i want to get back

9:47

a bit to the family dynamic here idris you play harp he’s an ex-con turned cowboy

9:52

and he’s a really tough dude but he’s also there’s a lot of vulnerability and a lot of emotion there

9:58

especially with the relationship with his son played by caleb and you’ve talked about about how you

10:03

drew from the relationship with uh your late father and so can you talk a little bit more about the family drama

10:10

that is the foundation of this film

10:16

yeah i mean it’s you know there’s there’s always a few components to telling a good story

10:23

and visualizing a good story you know from a visual perspective you want to take people into

10:29

into the story and you want to immerse them and you can do that with so many tricks now that you can bring people into a

10:35

story but when it comes to family dynamic each one of us have a very different

10:41

dynamic or perspective on the same dynamic we all have fathers

10:46

we all have mothers but we all have different perspectives on how that that story plays out and for me

10:53

the story between harp and his boy is so um unique

11:00

in in our filmmaking uh history only because we see the struggle of a a

11:07

father and son from a very different perspective we see them come together

11:13

when they have no choice and we see the son become a man and we see the dad

11:19

become a father and that you know it really is a a unique perspective and i was drawn to

11:25

that my dad was always in my life um and you know my dad my late dad and i

11:31

had a great relationship except you know we didn’t talk as much as i had loved uh us

11:36

too and so when i was reading the script i was in tears because there were moments where i wish

11:42

i had those very special delicate moments with my dad that i didn’t have so

11:47

that that really is the glue of this film you know uh and then added on to a

11:53

ricky’s brilliant and beautiful perspective but b the community of philly who is the

12:00

biggest character uh of of the film we’ve got mills here

12:05

mills is a writer from fletcher street and became one of my best friends and closest friends on the set without a

12:12

doubt because he was real and also he had never acted before so

12:17

we lent on each other to help each other just become as authentic as we can be

12:22

for this story you know what i mean yeah absolutely i’m gonna go to mill then

12:27

because i would call you an actor now after seeing your performance in this film but you are a cowboy so tell me

12:36

about taking on this role and acting for the first time what was the challenge in that it was

12:44

it was a it was a crazy challenge but after a while i got used to it

12:49

because i was around no lie even even caleb and jerome i just was feeling

12:56

real comfortable that’s what it was well yeah i mean

13:03

you pulled it off the authenticity that you brought to the screen it’s beautiful um caleb i’m going to go to you

13:10

this is also a first for you this is your first feature film and you really carry this film um but i read that you

13:18

were you were a little intimidated also to work with idris and you know to take on a movie this size so

13:24

talk about what that imitation intimidation was yeah i mean like who wouldn’t be i mean like just as a seasoned actor you know it’s

13:30

definitely going to go down as one of the goats of the industry um just wanted to make sure i was on my a

13:36

game and i and i brought what i needed to bring to the table um but uh once i was able to

13:42

communicate with him and be on set and go over the scenes i felt very comfortable he made me feel very comfortable

13:49

yeah you can you can feel that bond between the two the two of you for sure and another bond

13:55

that kind of is the glue of this film is between you and jerrell’s character and so drell i want you to talk about

14:01

how you and caleb developed that friendship and that bond that we see on screen

14:07

um yeah no we didn’t really develop anything i’m not a big fan

14:16

no um no i was incredibly excited to meet caleb we had met a few times just in passing here and i

14:22

saw him on a plane once i was like

14:28

yeah it was just full circle for me to see him on set but it’s cool because when i got to set um

14:35

i looked at caleb the same way i look at idris and i it’s i do it’s two distinguished actors i

14:42

don’t care how young caleb is he’s really put his foot um in his career and he’s really done it

14:48

and he’s really shy and just watching him and how he inspires his fans and how he inspires people

14:54

inspired me so when i got to stay i was nervous to meet this little boy i was i was and and i remember thinking

15:02

i hope that i can do my part with this kid and then when we got on set i saw that he was you know i felt like i’ve known him my

15:08

whole life i feel like he was my bro from we’re on the way the whole time you know um he was a kid just like me

15:14

and we were both just making jokes acting stupid and it got me real comfortable and then when i saw how nervous he was

15:20

um i got to take on a little bit of a big brother figure for him throughout you know i can’t really be

15:26

there the way smush was for people to be there for caleb and he had a couple moments before we started shooting when he was like man

15:32

i don’t know i don’t know and it was just as simple as bro you got this and he did and he did and i think the

15:38

best part for me in this film is that i think caleb grew up in a lot of ways doing this role

15:44

i think that it’s a shift in his career i think it’s going to change him and i think it’s going to change his life and

15:50

i got to watch it and i’m blessed to have watched it because i really think that caleb became

15:55

a man doing this part hmm caleb would you agree wow

16:04

i mean you know i feel like i’ve learned a lot just being on the film like i feel because i this i would usually like

16:10

moments like this for me is almost like my senior year in like high school because i was homeschooled

16:16

most of my life so um being on this set was definitely something that like i’ve learned a lot i’ve grown

16:23

like what uh jerrell was saying like i’ve grown into the young man that i am today like i’m totally different last

16:29

year um like mindset wise and just talking and talking to jerrell even like offset

16:35

besides just you know going over the scenes he you know we were just talking just like real deep conversations and like we

16:41

really grew like a great bond but um no i agree i agree

16:47

um lorraine when we talk about cowboys even in the name it’s very gendered

16:54

and it feels like you know from the outside you people would think this is a culture for men but one of the things i love

17:01

about this film is that the women are just as much a part of this world so can you talk to what you learned

17:07

about the women horse trainers in in philadelphia um they’re much more

17:12

glamorous than than you would think of prairie women and and cowgirls um they

17:19

they are you know they’re gorgeous they’ve got nails and and they and a lot of bling and there’s

17:26

a whole um subculture of of women writers that i learned about and uh we had

17:33

several of them on set and my character is actually a very real character uh in in the community

17:41

and so um you know like like in most women black women in in in our

17:47

cultures they you know they carry a lot of the load and and they they don’t necessarily get

17:52

the credit so um i love that ricky uh wrote these women into it in in such a

17:59

in a very real and profound way yeah same i was really excited to see

18:05

that uh ricky talk about the importance of including real um some of the real people at fletcher

18:12

street uh stables in in your cast yeah i mean that was always on the table

18:19

from the beginning with mill and eric

18:25

at the end of it you can watch it and say that is us and in my opinion there’s no better way to do that than do it together

18:32

so yeah i remember throwing mill putting those scenes together with them

18:37

and i don’t know if you forgot that you’re going to play that role but we started getting into pre-production i was like are you

18:43

preparing you’re like wait what i was like yeah boy again this is your time but uh but yeah i mean

18:50

it was uh i think it added a ton of just texture and um

18:55

i don’t know i i’m proud of that in the film to see that they got to be the voice of their

19:00

film it wasn’t necessarily all captured by hollywood actors uh and i think that they all benefit from being

19:06

together like i see that in the way that you know idris and mill their relationship particularly

19:13

how you know idris was able to lift up mill as an actor and mill was able to lift up the interest of the cowboy

19:19

and uh you know i always think about that scene around the fire where uh i was a scene and they were

19:26

just having a good time like a real good time and uh it was just fun to

19:31

see that that chemistry all the time on set like i think it really added a lot of dynamic to the film

19:38

yeah absolutely i want to talk about this scene because it was one of my favorites as well and um lorraine jamil idris and caleb were

19:46

in that scene around the fire and lorraine’s character says hollywood has deleted us from the history books

19:52

and she’s talking about black cowboys of course um and when i saw this thing i actually thought of old town road and the

19:58

conversation that we were having about the erasure of black cowboys like throughout pop

20:03

culture um so mel i want you to talk to what you this film brings as far as

20:10

awareness to your community well i knew that it was going to bring a

20:17

a whole bunch of attention but what i wanted them to really see

20:22

was the outsiders now they could look and see what’s really going on and like

20:29

kind of be inside now and when i when when y’all see this movie

20:35

it’s going to be laughing and crying but it’s it’s it’s a lot of that in

20:42

there but it’s different

20:47

yeah absolutely and you i mean as uh someone who’s actually in it do you feel like the essence of your

20:54

community is captured in this film yes yes

21:00

[Music]

21:07

stepped on my foot [Laughter] i was gonna ask about working with the

21:13

horses all the actors i guess except for sorrell can speak to this but um i read that idris you weren’t very good

21:20

around the horses at first can all of you speak to what it was like

21:25

getting to the border you had to look like

21:37

it’s all good it’s all good he’s telling the truth was it none of them good

21:43

[Laughter]

21:56

i

22:03

[Music]

22:11

caleb was talking about this earlier it goes beyond sort of just learning how to ride a

22:16

horse because you know very quickly you have to have in a relationship with the horse you

22:21

have to have a bond with that horse and even the horses some of the horses were you know especially film

22:27

horses they very quickly understand who’s riding on the back of them

22:32

yeah and they understand you and then you have to understand them and you know you get assigned a horse

22:38

and you train with that horse and very quickly my horse and i you know had to learn each other’s rhythms each

22:44

other’s you get to understand my voice but if i’m honest you know i i was watching meals and them guys all

22:50

the time just watching how they talk to their horses and how they relate because you know it

22:56

was very the horses that mills have and the the horses that were actors to slightly

23:03

different chemistry and so you know ricky was very clever about trying to make sure that we have

23:09

real horses from the stables and you know actor horses so that chemistry

23:14

looked real you know it did especially between like boo and

23:21

cole like uh caleb’s character it did feel very real that that bond you created was that

23:28

caleb yeah nah yeah me and patrick got along very well you know um uh like offset like at lunchtime i would

23:36

go and you know give him some snacks and i would talk to him and um rub him i remember him not but uh

23:51

we were in the stables it was like the first time working with him it was like one scene where um it’s just like really close

23:57

corners and he’s just like standing above me and i didn’t really know him yet so i was kind of a little you know

24:03

terrified a little bit but uh once once i got cumberland we were chilling me and patrick were chilling yeah that’s

24:08

my guy you can tell um okay i’m gonna move over to uh

24:14

questions here from the press and audience watching uh first up from shonda price for e.t

24:22

canada um this question is for idris she says at such an important time with

24:28

the black lives matter movement driving for change and ending police brutality in the u.s how did playing the father

24:35

of a troubled young black man growing up in america resonate with you

24:43

um you know chandra just to be clear you know we made this movie

24:49

uh you know 15 months ago and and it was before this you know pinnacle

24:56

of awareness um but even then it was incredibly important to us as a group of

25:03

filmmakers that you know um we tell this story of the fork in the road that you can

25:10

take as a young man in this country and what happens on one end of the fork and then what happens in the other end

25:15

of the fall and you know we we all as a group have been talking just collectively like wow

25:21

how poignant is this film and particularly that central storyline

25:28

to this moment right now you know and i’m hoping that you know as a result a people look back at their communities

25:35

and respect the the role that communities play on young young men’s lives young people’s

25:42

lives because often times it takes a village you know and sometimes we might stray outside of our village only

25:48

to come back to the comfort of our villages that’s where we’re safe so it’s interesting right now because we

25:53

were just talking about this earlier like man we could not have predicted this ricky has been working on this film for

25:59

four years you know america didn’t change overnight you know these are issues that have been

26:05

going on for for a long time even where i’m from in england where there’s a huge knife crime problem

26:10

you know you we watch a movie like this and we remind ourselves hey actually

26:16

yeah there are very important lessons to be learned from telling stories like this

26:21

you know what i’m saying um so it really resonated to me i’m a father of two boys

26:27

and you know definitely i can’t wait for my youngest to see this this film yeah and what i will say in

26:36

the context of of right now which i don’t love calling it a moment because you know we’ve all been blessed

26:43

oh you can’t hear me no can everybody hear me i don’t hear you i can hear you no

26:51

it’s oh me then oh okay um what i was just going to say is that uh i love the humanity you can

26:58

hear caleb the whole interview by the way no really i’m sure you were saying some

27:03

nice things

27:13

i mean i was just going to say some really nice things about the movie and that i love that you know we need to see more human stories about uh black people and

27:20

blackness that that’s not aren’t necessarily about all of these big issues we’re talking about which i love about

27:27

this film um okay another audience question from andrea case uh from ctv news oh it is for ildress idris

27:35

um so we will wait until it just gets back um i want to actually direct this over to lee

27:41

then um this question you know when you watch the film by the end of it you’re just wanting to

27:49

save and preserve this community and this way of life for these people so how do you hope the film does that

28:02

um i think i i don’t know i i pray that if enough people see it they see

28:08

the beauty of what these men are doing and what these what just what

28:13

this what these stables mean to the community and have met to the community and that we can keep it open we can get

28:19

it we can we can fight the city to keep it open

28:25

yeah you know today this this this is a this is a this is a god

28:31

can you hear me or no yeah go ahead the film is a godsend

28:37

the film is a godsend that we were able to put this film together um with these incredible actors

28:45

that have willing to step in for a couple of dollars to make this movie um under the direction under

28:53

under the direction of this incredible director and um like we ain’t seen nothing like this

28:59

like this is something that’s on some new we have never seen a cowboy movie that takes place in the city and uh and

29:07

i and and and we i don’t know the last father son maybe the butler i guess is a father-son love story that we’ve seen

29:14

really where we see these two black this kid and his father sort of come together it’s beautiful

29:21

it’s beautiful and we should see more films like this yeah absolutely um before we get back to

29:29

the audience questions i just idris and caleb now it just can you hear caleb now

29:35

hey caleb how are you doing hey what’s up man i can’t hear you

29:43

we keep talking about the beautiful love story between your two characters the father and son bond that you built

29:49

so can you talk about uh what was going on behind the scenes for you to um to create the authenticity of that

29:56

and especially in the heated moments that happen between the two of you on screen

30:04

look you know i just you know i would just say that um this is caleb’s first movie

30:12

first movie and i was so proud and i think we all are to be able to witness his performance and his stepping into

30:20

some really big shoes because it’s a very big role and it’s a very important one

30:25

and caleb came in with such a professionality and b vulnerability he was really honest about

30:31

where he was and how he was so he and i fed off that i’m a fan of

30:36

his uh from the his show and his work and and likewise he was a fan of mine and we

30:42

just fed off that and we use that as an opportunity to just really just like connect as actors

30:47

you know what i’m saying like uh caleb and i we ran scenes we spoke about our

30:54

personal relationships with our fathers we spoke about life and love and i mean very quickly you know

31:03

you know ricky was kind of he’s a kind of director that if he sees the chemistry brewing he’s like i want to

31:08

shoot this i want to shoot this and so caleb and i did one or two rehearsals and they were so like

31:15

in touch with what ricky had written we started filming that really quickly uh but i just want to say

31:22

like i’m so proud of caleb because uh this was not an easy role and he really stepped into it like a

31:29

hundred percent bigger thank you so much thank you yeah nah i’m like what you just said

31:35

like we when we were on setting that one of the most powerful scenes in the film um we

31:40

sat down for about like 30 minutes just discussing it and just going over the dynamic the relationship

31:45

between the father and son and then with the father-son relationship in the film and then i think what helped as well as

31:52

it is that i mean it just grew up a personal bond just interesting caleb and i think that helped cultivate that

31:59

that that that feeling that you see in the film

32:04

and that’s a big thing for a young actor to say that you know you’re now friends with idris

32:10

elba yes [Music]

32:23

it’s kind of hard to say friends because you know but like he’s like more like a mentor like a like like second dad you know what i’m

32:30

saying like yeah no uncle idris uncle agent yeah

32:38

and i love caleb man he’s dope and very honest and very open and um he just snapped into this role

32:45

he’s mad it’s mad to watch um lorraine as a veteran in this cast with

32:53

like jarrell and caleb who are becoming you know these these big heavyweights in

33:00

the industry in their own right um did you pass on any any advice to them

33:07

no they got it hey they they rocked it i mean they

33:13

they they are proven entities and uh and badass so lorraine don’t you like

33:20

what these kids is doing oh i do i love i just love what they’re doing it’s just like i wish that we

33:26

all had the feeling that they had when they were their age i know this is like you kind of look at

33:32

this is the this is the this is this is what we’re bringing up now this is what the world has wrought and

33:38

they are so fear i mean well in in when they see us

33:46

and and so it’s just i have nothing but mama

33:55

and quiet extraordinary pride in who they

34:02

are as young artists and and how they’re representing and i don’t just mean

34:07

representing black i just i mean presenting artistry representing the art

34:15

yes they come from an era like julie and like you address where you know this was

34:20

a craft you know this this wasn’t about celebrity this was a craft that you

34:26

spent the long haul for and these young and um they are bringing it

34:33

and so it was wanted to get in the sandbox with them that’s that was the fun i mean it was

34:40

yes you know unless um i wish we did more lorraine i wish we did so much more

34:46

yeah yeah me too man i’m such i i so admire your work because these kids today you

34:53

know these young kids today really think that it’s about just uh they don’t think it’s about the work i’ve seen

34:58

these kids at work and you see their work what what what has come of their work and it’s about it’s about

35:06

the work and they have put it in and it’s there and they uh they respect the craft

35:12

and they know if you can see it you can see it on screen they were prepared they were they were prepared and they

35:19

they brought their a game but they came they came respectfully and they came

35:25

prepared i mean that’s the you kind of go you kind of stand in the side and go all right

35:33

yeah you know i i really want to also you know these two

35:39

boys there i you know they are yeah but

35:44

but you know i want to just give up some props to meals because you know as ricky said you know mills

35:50

was very much a part of the crew uh and the development of this film and

35:55

then he he shows up and he’s in the movie and uh he has a nickname mills what’s

36:01

your nickname bro tell him mills washington

36:07

that’s what he called me i gave him that name

36:18

uh he would take such pride after every word he was saying he you know as

36:23

an actor he wasn’t the play in this thing you know and you know he he would take

36:28

such pride in every word uh he would you know just do it again he would

36:34

have the language of the film set like do we need to do that again you know he really jumped in so big up

36:40

meals you know big up to you man like first time on film you killed absolutely killed it yeah

36:45

yeah what happened for that emails did were you just learning on set like how did you learn

36:51

that lingo and all of the things that

37:04

because the improvs when we did ricky let us do a lot of improv yes

37:14

[Laughter] is making your job all sound very easy

37:21

it i did yeah i have to say one time you had me cracking up mills no i had to

37:26

say one time but everything else was great it was fun it was just so it was fun now but it was he was like

37:34

the black boy in the cow one on one it sounds like a real time

37:44

no it was a lot of fun it was great yeah yeah i had fun i beat him with cowboy boobs on man

37:50

basketball

37:56

wow

38:01

it was four in the morning i was tired okay i was tired did you drive any games

38:09

huh yeah dana did you enjoy win any basketball games the whole shoot dan and i took you guys down too

38:43

yeah right right because you got that old man yeah you’re just justifying your losses

38:49

by by being in character okay got it um i said you guys sounded

38:55

like you had a lot of a lot of fun and clearly um ricky just going back to i asked lee

39:01

this question just about um you know you being a white director taking on this story that is

39:08

is so important um for this black community um but yeah you

39:14

didn’t have a chance to weigh in on that so i want to talk about any um hesitations you had

39:19

or out you know why you felt like you could tell this story yeah no i mean it’s a

39:25

fair question i uh let’s even take it back to give some context to it not you know

39:32

it wasn’t just a kind of story we picked off a shelf that really did derive from relationships i

39:38

had in the community you know i run a production company out of philadelphia that hires adults

39:43

returning home from incarceration that’s why i started the company and so

39:48

you know in our country unfortunately most people coming home from being incarcerated are black and so

39:54

a lot of my friends co-workers are black and you know i was living in the

40:00

community you know right there where the stables are when i made my short film with friends

40:06

and neighbors and i don’t know these were stories that became important to me because they were

40:11

important to the people i loved and so you know meeting eric and mill um i was very upfront that like i’m well

40:18

aware that i have a gift as a writer and director but i’m not a black cowboy so i said you know if you guys don’t

40:24

tell this story with me i can’t i can’t do it so we have to do it together and those guys you know stuck

40:29

we stuck beside each other really is important to both of us um but yeah you know um we never

40:36

imagined it would get to this stage you know i think when we were first talking about it we were going to do it just all

40:42

real cowboys from fletcher street you know but when idris elvis says you want to be in your movie you pivot

40:49

a lot bigger so yeah it’s it’s definitely something that i’m okay talking about

40:55

because obviously it’s the elephant in the room and i’m okay with that um but i’m just i feel an incredible

41:01

amount of gratitude that i get to call this cast the cowboys on fletcher street like part of my friends

41:07

and family like they’ve completely changed my life and sharpened my uh levels of compassion and empathy for

41:14

people who are so different than me and i think that’s what was really beautiful about making the movie i think it’s beautiful

41:20

about putting it out is that you know i hope that’s what art does it changes us like inside and making this

41:26

film definitely did that so i don’t know i’m really proud to be its director but i definitely it’s not a film by me

41:33

this was genuinely a film by all of us because uh every day it was a sincere effort of

41:40

the community and the cast getting behind me because we had every hurdle times 10 to put this together so it is

41:47

true just testimony to the body of all of us so yeah i think you can feel that on screen

41:53

for sure uh final question idris um premiering this film

41:59

i can imagine this is not what you pictured to prepare this film virtually like this so

42:06

talk about um premiering the film as the star and as a producer in the middle of a

42:12

pandemic well um kathleen what you can’t see

42:18

just below there is a little red carpet that i just rolled out earlier

42:24

i’m just gonna do my little one i’m happy [Laughter]

42:30

look you know it just you know look it just shows about the innovation of huma of of of humans you

42:37

know we’re innovative we find other ways and one thing that we have we all know is

42:42

that storytelling is how we become who we are and you can’t stop a good story

42:48

so you know uh i applaud to uh uh the team there for

42:55

allowing this to be taken on a different form and still allowing uh great films to come

43:01

through great storytelling it’s a different time for all of us um i’d love to hear lee’s perspective on this as well because he’s

43:08

seasoned in the way that i am but you know it’s a different time but there’s a there’s an interesting

43:14

satisfaction that even though there’s a pandemic a story like this can still get through

43:20

you know what i’m saying and and actually during this time people may look at this story differently from

43:28

how they may have done if it hadn’t if this isn’t happened right now i think people might

43:33

resonate with the sense of community of this movie i think people might resonate with the connection of the characters

43:39

not just this film but some of the great films that are coming through tiff people will may look at the film slightly differently

43:45

rightly and appreciate it more tip thank you for having us very much it um it’s an honor to be here again this

43:52

time as a producer but um yeah i mean it’s sort of it’s uh

43:58

y’all can’t beat us down we ain’t gonna get beat down concrete cowboy

44:10

you know and um and let’s sell this movie and let’s and and celebrate after we sell it

44:18

well i’m gonna let you have the last word there lee because we are out of time thank you all so much for your work

44:24

thank you for this film it was one of my favorites i’ve seen at the festival so far it’s truly a work of art so thank you all

44:33

it was nice nice to see you all right nice thing so thank you thank you so much

44:38

good job everyone good to see you guys thank you everyone watching

No results found