The Source Magazine sat down with Director Allen Hughes where he spoke about his new film “Broken City” starring Mark Wahlberg. Hughes is probably best known for “The Book of Eli,” “American Pimp,” “Dead Presidents” and “Menace II Society,” which he worked on with his brother Albert Hughes.
Q: Can you share your favorite scene in “Broken City”?
Allen Hughes: You know there’s a lot of moments that are actually my favorite, there’s about ten of them, but the one I cherish the most is the one with Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta Jones, in that mirror, and where he’s ultimately putting her necklace on, it’s one shot. It’s one shot, and it’s wide, and it moves, moves, moves, and then it ends when he walks away from her, and in her close-up, and she did an extraordinary job. You know, the scene was written, he’s in his mirror, and she’s in her mirror, and they’re talking over their shoulder, and two great actors work some things out, and you just pay attention, and you get out of the way.
Q: You also directed the “I Need a Doctor” music video for Dr. Dre and Eminem.
Allen Hughes: That was deep, because Eazy-E was my like a big brother mentor to me, before I started making music videos, and Eazy was significant to me, taught me a lot about what I know now, you know, concept, theme, and how to put a show on, stand out and whatever, so I now know. Dr. Dre introduced me to Eazy-E, so I’ve known Dre for twenty two years and doing that music video, it was all about Dre, and paying homage to his history and making. He’s a walking monument of hip hop, and the only one still thriving, by the way, he’s about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the next two years and so doing the music video, and working with this genius Eminem too, I call him Rain Man, and taking Dre up to Big Sur, and shooting all that opening stuff, and totaling for the first time in the history of film, a two hundred thousand dollar Ferrari, for real. A real one, you know, Michael Bay has fabricated shells made, so never has there been, a Ferrari do that many revolutions in the air. I was effectively trying to kill the old Dre, because he used to drive a lot of Ferraris in his videos, I said Dre, let’s kill this old Dre, because he’s focused on his body, as he says, his babe and his business, so the Eazy-E thing was very emotional for he and I, because we had not been to his gravesite, until that moment that was in that music video, and that was a trip.
Q: You’ve done a lot of films in the past that have themes that are reoccurring in hip hop.
Allen Hughes: I think hip hop is punk rock to me, it’s the ultimate form of punk rock, and you have a lot of suburbian kids, that grow up and have a choice between Karen Carpenter, or Luther Vandross, or The Doors. Coming up as a disenfranchised young black male or female, it’s hip hop, and it’s anger, it’s rebellion, it’s punk rock. Finally, black youth, and white youth, they make up eighty percent of the buying market for hip hop anyway, I think it hit the black communities in a way that we finally felt empowered in a f*ck you type of way. It wasn’t like a black power thing, which had to start with that first you know forty years ago. Black panthers kind of had the attitude, but it wasn’t on a pop level, and hip hop, and rap brought that “f*ck you, I’m doing what the f*ck I want to do, I’m doing it the way I want to do it,” and that’s definitely how we came up, and so that’s in the films.
Q: Out of all these films that you’ve made, that pertain to the culture, what do you think was your favorite one film?
Allen Hughes: The favorite one for me to film personally? “American Pimp” was my favorite film we’ve done, and I think it went over people’s heads. You’ve got to watch that one. That’s one you’ve got to watch a few times. It’s a lot going on, there’s a lot being said, there’s a lot between the lines and it has become a cult thing, but I think it’s under appreciated, and it has nothing to do with us, it has to do with letting these guys talk and they’re saying things you don’t have any idea they’re saying. You think they’re not revealing the truth, but they are telling the truth, and they’re saying some pretty scandalous things, and that was fun for me and my brother to get back to doing how we started, he was filming and I was recording. I like “American Pimp” most because literally there were no PA’s or any gaffers or whatever. It was me and my brother on a plane every other weekend, or two weekends, it was a hobby, I was learning how to do sound, he was learning how to shoot a camera, and that’s how we did it. So please go see “American Pimp,” and cop that sound track too, there’s a soundtrack that just came out in last five years, that’s incredible. It has outtakes on it, too.
Q: This film obviously has a great cast was it easy to get them on board for the movie?
Allen Hughes: I think it was a lot easier because the roles were so great, and meaty, and juicy, so, we didn’t have a lot of money, so you can’t dangle the carrot of money over them, so it was the script that spoke to them. There’s not a lot of great scripts out there, that are being produced anymore, you know, and when one gets produced with rich characters like this, it attracts a great cast immediately.
Q: Was there any funny story from the set?
Allen Hughes: The most memorable moment is when we had to shoot Mark when he fell off the wagon, and he was going through the streets of New York like King Kong. And all that stuff in the movie, that stuff with him fighting that black guy in the hoodie, that stuff with him drinking the forty coming out of the liquor store, he was really doing it all, he went in there, and bought the forty, talked with the bodega guy, got in an argument with him, came out. That’s when he was talking about, “Waste my f*cking money, waste my f*cking time” and just all that stuff was improv, it wasn’t even written. What was written? “Billy walks down the street” and we knew we needed more.
Q: Do you have any upcoming projects?
Allen Hughes: The next one I’m doing is called “A Bittersweet Life,” it’s based on the Korean gangster film, it’s a vengeance film, and it will be some gangster sh*t.
“Broken City” is now playing!
-Jagpal Khahera
