:00:09. > :00:13.And now it is time for HARDtalk. HARDtalk has come to a fitter in
:00:13. > :00:23.the West End to meet one of America's most respected actors,
:00:23. > :00:28.James Earl Jones -- a theatre. His is an extraordinary story. Born
:00:28. > :00:34.into rural poverty in Mississippi in the era of segregation. He has
:00:34. > :00:39.be be an Oscar for a last time of cinematic achievement.
:00:39. > :00:43.These days, black American success on stage and screen is not unusual,
:00:43. > :00:53.but how hard has the journey been and has America really left the
:00:53. > :01:04.
:01:04. > :01:11.James Earl Jones, welcome to HARDtalk. Welcome to our theatre.
:01:11. > :01:21.Thank you. This bitter, where four weeks you have been treading the
:01:21. > :01:21.
:01:21. > :01:27.boards, -- This theatre -- in the play Driving Miss Daisy. I wonder
:01:27. > :01:31.ays to get up for the rehearsing and
:01:31. > :01:39.preparation, all the g all the g physical endurance you have to have
:01:39. > :01:47.for eight daily play. Everybody works. -- a day the play. Even the
:01:48. > :01:56.President and Prime Minister works. Then we sleep. It is not hard to
:01:56. > :02:01.work with this play. It is not hard to work with Vanessa Redgrave.
:02:01. > :02:06.wonder whether this play resonates with you because it is said in the
:02:06. > :02:11.south, in Atalanta, during the era of segregation. You were born and
:02:11. > :02:18.raised in Mississippi during the era of segregation. Does this
:02:18. > :02:25.particularly have meaning for you? Yes. I can say honestly I know a
:02:25. > :02:30.lot about it. I wish others knew about it. That is why it is
:02:30. > :02:38.important to do place like this. Luckily we have a play here which
:02:38. > :02:48.is not about polemics. It does not want to change your mind, it's
:02:48. > :02:58.simply wants to touch your heart. I want you to experience the
:02:58. > :02:58.
:02:58. > :03:06.characters. The society is there. through everrough evert happened in
:03:06. > :03:12.that world. What strikes me about this play is that in the
:03:12. > :03:16.relationship between these two people, and this play is about a
:03:16. > :03:21.relationship between a black chauffeur, and his boss who is a
:03:21. > :03:26.widow Jewish Women, in the Deep South, and they are both getting on
:03:26. > :03:30.a life, and their relationship was a false and it ends up becoming a
:03:30. > :03:36.trusting and loving relationship, despite all the crouching us and
:03:36. > :03:41.grumpiness. The black man in the play has great virtues. He is
:03:41. > :03:48.dignified and respectful, and respected. In many ways, it is some
:03:48. > :03:58.are too many parts you have played in your career. Would you agree?
:03:58. > :04:03.hope so. Some people cannot handle someone being that accommodating to
:04:03. > :04:09.other people, who are not accommodating to them. You mean as
:04:09. > :04:19.a black man he should have been angrier? That is the perception
:04:19. > :04:26.nowadays -- you should have been angrier. That is for people who are
:04:26. > :04:33.black, or who have less advantage. It is there for everybody. For all
:04:33. > :04:37.kinds of reasons. We all have anger. This is what I am interested in. We
:04:37. > :04:40.are talking about fiction but I want to bring it to your own life.
:04:40. > :04:46.When you were growing up in that particular era in the United States
:04:46. > :04:54.of America, was there not a lot of anger in you? I will tell you about
:04:54. > :04:58.three instances. I was raised by a racist grandmother. She was part
:04:59. > :05:06.Cherokee and part black. But she was the most racist person I have
:05:06. > :05:14.ever known. She trained us that way. She considered it defensive racism,
:05:14. > :05:24.but it is still racism. She hated black people and injuring people
:05:24. > :05:24.
:05:24. > :05:31.for allowing me to happen. -- Indian. It is like taking arsenic
:05:31. > :05:37.to cure whatever it is supposed to cure. When I got to school, in
:05:37. > :05:43.Michigan, I had to sort it out. She gave me my first need for
:05:43. > :05:53.independent thinking. I went to school with white kids and Indian
:05:53. > :05:57.
:05:57. > :06:06.kids. They were not the devil she said they were. I can now live in
:06:06. > :06:16.the shoes of a racist. I know exactly what they are feeling. I
:06:16. > :06:22.know what they are going through. It is no surprise to me. Also, on
:06:22. > :06:32.our farm in Mississippi before we move to Michigan, we had a wagon.
:06:32. > :06:35.
:06:35. > :06:42.Most kids do. We took good care of that wagon. We got into the wagon
:06:42. > :06:49.one day and it was all chewed up. The white people had used the wagon
:06:49. > :06:57.to cut wood up. It was all destroyed. We could not chastise
:06:57. > :07:05.them. My father said, no. It was the first time I understood. It was
:07:05. > :07:10.the advantage of being a white kid. If we fast-forward to your early
:07:10. > :07:15.adulthood when you are trying to make it as a young actor, America
:07:15. > :07:19.is going through turbulent times, the late 60s. I am thinking about
:07:19. > :07:25.the civil rights movement. The rise of black power and black leaders
:07:25. > :07:32.who are saying, we will no longer accept the status quo in any shape
:07:32. > :07:40.or form and if necessary will respond with direct action. Were
:07:40. > :07:44.you ever inclined to take that view yourself? I came out of the Army
:07:44. > :07:54.using everything I had been trained to use. I may be thought there
:07:54. > :07:55.
:07:55. > :08:01.would be a race war. But it was all folly. Malcolm X never visited the
:08:01. > :08:08.South but I had. Martin Luther King was a man of the South. I did not
:08:08. > :08:14.even trust him. You did not trust King? No. He was a preacher. There
:08:14. > :08:23.were preachers and my family. I do not trust a preacher. -- in my
:08:23. > :08:27.family. Even today, I do not listen carefully to them. So you did not
:08:27. > :08:33.sympathise with Malcolm X and did not trust Martin Luther King but
:08:33. > :08:37.surely the message from Martin Luther King resonated with you? The
:08:37. > :08:47.message for black people not to take their just deserts from
:08:47. > :08:47.
:08:47. > :08:57.society. Once I understood the footsteps of my had my Gandhi, I
:08:57. > :08:59.
:08:59. > :09:04.said yes, he is the right leader -- Mahatma. It was not well designed
:09:04. > :09:10.folly. It was not well designed activism. I decided I did not want
:09:10. > :09:13.of any part of that. To bring it back to your career, many people
:09:13. > :09:23.will remember poor performances in The Great White Hope, when he
:09:23. > :09:25.
:09:25. > :09:31.played the black boxer -- will remember performances. They may
:09:31. > :09:39.also think of the television series Roots. He played the role of a man
:09:39. > :09:45.going to West Africa to find his own ancestors -- he played. These
:09:45. > :09:54.are roles full of dignity and Admiral's Well qualities but not
:09:54. > :09:58.full of the anger. -- admirable. Racial consciousness is good. You
:09:58. > :10:04.should understand your people and your culture. But to be conceded
:10:04. > :10:12.about it, that is where the danger is. -- to be cacique. The young
:10:13. > :10:21.people pushing this up, it becomes can seat. That is misplaced ago.
:10:21. > :10:25.more recent times, I am thinking of Spike Lee, he has been very
:10:25. > :10:29.critical of the movie Driving Miss Daisy and said it had a very
:10:29. > :10:36.conservative and sentimental view of what happened to black people in
:10:36. > :10:44.the 20th century. Do you understand why he is coming from? Yes I do.
:10:44. > :10:51.where he is coming from. I am playing with two other black people
:10:51. > :10:58.in the theatre. They both refrain from using polemics. They choose to
:10:58. > :11:04.give you the character's experience. I do not expect to change anybody's
:11:04. > :11:09.mind because you cannot. I expect to change their hearts. If you give
:11:09. > :11:15.them the character's experience fully, and honestly, they will feel.
:11:15. > :11:18.The audience will sit here and feel it. That is a fascinating insight.
:11:18. > :11:26.Do you believe that you have managed to change some people's
:11:26. > :11:31.lights? I cannot tell. -- lives. If I can get through to their feelings,
:11:31. > :11:36.that is what the play is about. Comedies and tragedies. If I can
:11:36. > :11:41.get through one night. There are different ways of addressing the
:11:41. > :11:47.same thing, of trying to get the trip out to audiences. Let me quote
:11:47. > :11:57.you something that a black intellectual said of Sydney party,
:11:57. > :12:06.
:12:06. > :12:09.in 1969. -- --Sidney Poitier. He said there is no sense in been a $1
:12:09. > :12:14.million a shoeshine boy. I just wonder when you hear people say
:12:14. > :12:21.that sort of thing about this actor, whether you worried that some
:12:21. > :12:30.people might say that about your roles? I think that is distorted
:12:30. > :12:40.poetry. I do not understand that comment. Whoever he is. Sydney, I
:12:40. > :12:43.
:12:43. > :12:53.would more compare, to a cowboy. John Wayne? No. He was not a cowboy.
:12:53. > :12:55.
:12:55. > :13:05.Which cowboy do you mean? You will not fall safely... Who is that guy?
:13:05. > :13:09.
:13:09. > :13:18.The good guy of roads. That is The good guy of roads. That is
:13:18. > :13:24.The good guy of roads. That is Sydney also -- roads. -- Rose. He
:13:24. > :13:34.was here for the images that he put up for people. That is the only
:13:34. > :13:34.
:13:34. > :13:44.thing that defines her. Do you think that will continue to define
:13:44. > :13:46.
:13:46. > :13:52.the roles that black people play? The actor should have won the Oscar
:13:52. > :14:02.for playing the original man in Driving Miss Daisy. And he also
:14:02. > :14:09.
:14:09. > :14:14.played a penned one time. He was so scary. -- a pain. But -- a pimp.
:14:14. > :14:19.What we see today, from black actors, I am thinking of Will Smith
:14:19. > :14:27.and Denzel Washington, taking a good guys, bad guys, ambiguous
:14:27. > :14:31.roles, and I wonder whether some of the questions you had to face from
:14:31. > :14:39.people through this prison of being a black actor, whether that has
:14:39. > :14:48.gone now? I never paid attention to it anyway. I just pay attention to
:14:48. > :14:53.Am thinking about the America you have lived in and the
:14:53. > :14:56.transformation we had seen. It is ironic that he played a black
:14:56. > :15:02.president in the 70s and here we are more than three decades later
:15:02. > :15:06.end it is no longer fiction. Does that say you do something profound
:15:06. > :15:12.has changed - has been delivered for the African-American
:15:12. > :15:19.population? It surprised us. I understand enterprise due in
:15:19. > :15:23.Britain as well. That America was capable of collecting Barack Obama.
:15:23. > :15:27.I remember I was in my brother-in- law's house and it looked like it
:15:28. > :15:34.was going to go either way. I did not want to sit through that, so my
:15:34. > :15:44.wife and I went home. When we turn the television and later, Barack
:15:44. > :15:44.
:15:44. > :15:50.Obama had won. I was ready to accept it either way. I do sense
:15:50. > :15:53.some disappointment in use since. You have said things like, we
:15:53. > :15:58.thought we got the hero into the White House and we thought we had
:15:59. > :16:05.done our job, but maybe we celebrated too early. I do not know
:16:05. > :16:08.what we thought, but I know be did not react to that fact. The fact
:16:09. > :16:13.was, a door was opened and they should have been a flood of energy
:16:13. > :16:17.through that door. It should have heightened our behaviour and our
:16:17. > :16:21.experience. You have the same amount of crime going on in the
:16:21. > :16:27.streets and the same amount of lethargy going on in homes and
:16:27. > :16:34.schools. That shocked me, because with that kind of door open, it
:16:35. > :16:41.should have created in energy that went rewarded what he represented.
:16:41. > :16:47.It was not him, it was asked that one that presidency. It was our job
:16:47. > :16:53.to make hay from it. Why hasn't that happened then? Because we do
:16:53. > :16:58.not know how to maintain it. The idea of setting up a hero and
:16:58. > :17:04.vetting in delayed is still pretty strong. For a guy who has won Tony
:17:04. > :17:09.wants and has had an honorary Oscar, you were never pressure about --
:17:09. > :17:17.pressures about your career. You are happy to do commercials, radios,
:17:17. > :17:23.screen performances. It is called acting. Yes, I am a journeyman.
:17:23. > :17:29.say that, but many others would not. You go through a period where you
:17:29. > :17:35.would have to prove yourself. You cannot do it without being an
:17:35. > :17:43.apprentice first. You go out there and you learn how to build it up.
:17:43. > :17:48.You start as a stage carpenter. You get out there and you work your
:17:48. > :17:53.butt off all night to get decent painted, C can go out and get the
:17:53. > :18:00.lead actors to do a show the next night. Do you think the discipline
:18:00. > :18:07.of acting and the art of acting has been skewed by the money and the
:18:07. > :18:15.glamour that particularly resides in movies? I wonder when people are
:18:15. > :18:21.going to start occupying the movie studios over distorted racial
:18:21. > :18:27.salaries. It is ridiculous. I would not turn it down, because it is
:18:27. > :18:31.money. If somebody wants to dump millions of dollars into my pocket,
:18:31. > :18:41.I would not say no. But it is ridiculous. What job of work is
:18:41. > :18:48.worth more than $1 million? Would job in the world? Is taking's job
:18:48. > :18:55.worth more than $1 million? No. interested in that train of thought
:18:55. > :19:01.that Hollywood and everything that he can offer is sucking up so much
:19:01. > :19:06.of the interest and talent. It is very complex, because it is not
:19:07. > :19:14.just the act of. It is also be the agents. There is a competition
:19:14. > :19:19.between agents. Once you get bigger salaries, it gets even bigger. What
:19:19. > :19:24.bothers me is the match is below the lead actor, who has to suffer a
:19:24. > :19:31.much smaller salary because the lead is getting more to million
:19:31. > :19:36.dollars. That bothers me. That is worth an occupied movement.
:19:36. > :19:42.thing that strikes me about your career is so many people around the
:19:42. > :19:48.world are not going to identify you buy your face, but your voice. You
:19:48. > :19:57.have lived by your voice. I wonder when you recognise that your voice
:19:57. > :20:03.was a special instrument. I had to find it first. I did not talk from
:20:04. > :20:10.the age of five to 15. We do need? It was too embarrassing and painful.
:20:10. > :20:16.I am a stutter rap. I still am. One reason I am not an activist is
:20:17. > :20:21.because when I get heated, I go haywire. Many people would say your
:20:21. > :20:26.voice carries with it a weight and authority. We have to talk about it,
:20:26. > :20:32.we have to talk about Darth Vader and the fact that so many millions
:20:32. > :20:38.of people associate your voice with that character and that 'Star Wars'
:20:38. > :20:43.trilogy. There is something unique about it. When I began talking
:20:43. > :20:50.again and the teacher in high school he got me talking again said,
:20:50. > :20:59.now that you are talking, you now have a male, had old boys. It
:20:59. > :21:04.happened to be a base and those are rare. The best advice I have for
:21:04. > :21:08.you is do not listen to it. You might fall in love with it yourself
:21:08. > :21:16.and what you do, you're doomed. Because if you listen to it, nobody
:21:16. > :21:21.else will. She wore dinner to be too self-conscious about it? Yes.
:21:21. > :21:25.The worst thing an actor can do is be self-conscious. I wonder if it
:21:25. > :21:29.sticks in your throat, giving the span of luck that you have done,
:21:29. > :21:35.but people come back to Darth Vader? A performance that did not
:21:35. > :21:45.have too many words in it and where you could not be seen. It goes down
:21:45. > :21:45.
:21:45. > :21:49.like butter. I love being a part of that whole myth. Especially when
:21:49. > :21:53.they are kids than they won their posters signed. You cannot say no
:21:54. > :22:02.to that. Did George Lucas have to get you to adapt your voice for
:22:02. > :22:08.that particular role? No. He did that in casting. He wanted to use
:22:08. > :22:16.Orson Welles, but he thought he would be to recognisable. So he
:22:17. > :22:20.chose a starter. I got a job. He did not pay much. If you are in
:22:20. > :22:27.actor, I would have gotten points than staff had been a millionaire.
:22:27. > :22:34.I am happy to have been special effects and that's all I was.
:22:34. > :22:39.is how you are titled Yousuf Raza Gilani that is how I titled myself.
:22:39. > :22:43.When you talk about your career now, you say that you now believe your
:22:43. > :22:51.best baby, your legacy may be, lies in the future, that it is still
:22:51. > :22:58.ahead of you? Yes. What is your dream role? There is a writer out
:22:58. > :23:05.there who has that hedging in the back of his mind and soul. He or
:23:05. > :23:12.she will write it. In the meantime, are you going to stay on the stage?
:23:12. > :23:18.That is my tendency. I would do a little movie. I would do a little
:23:18. > :23:26.part in a movie here and there, but I find it easier to commit to this.
:23:26. > :23:33.I know what is going on here. this way you deal most comfortable?
:23:33. > :23:43.I never feel uncomfortable. I am never nervous. That feeling is
:23:43. > :23:43.
:23:43. > :23:50.something else going on. That adrenalin. I fear heightened. --
:23:50. > :23:55.field. I would not compare to a poll put, but when you have a good
:23:55. > :24:02.play, it is worth preaching to a congregation. There is something
:24:02. > :24:10.similar about it. Not that I want to be religious at this moment.
:24:10. > :24:16.There is something sacred, to me, about this. I do not like people