The Source Magazine sat down with the cast of LUV, which hit theaters this weekend. Check out what they had to say about working on the project.
Director Sheldon Candis
Q: How long did it take for you to write LUV?
Sheldon Candis: It was a complete eight year process of making the film, but it was three years of writing the screenplay, with my writing partner Justin Wilson.
Q: What was the basis of your story, what was the inspiration by?
Sheldon Candis: It’s a fictional story that’s inspired by a true relationship, and that’s a relationship I had as a young boy growing up in Baltimore with one of my uncles.
Q: How were you able to bring together this cast?
Sheldon Candis: I always say write a captivating story, write something that moves people emotionally and I’m so fortunate, and really truly blessed as the filmmaker to have The Color Purple’s Mr. Danny Glover, you know, Dennis Haysbert, and Meagan Good, and Michael Kenneth Williams, and this wonderful talent in Michael Rainey Jr., and Common giving his breakthrough performance as a leading man. I’m fortunate, because they were all emotionally moved by the screenplay, and they took this journey with me to tell a story.
Q: Was there any hip hop influence in the film?
Sheldon Candis : Completely, I always tell people I was in college, my freshman year, writing term papers to Common’s music, you know, Like Water For Chocolate. Common is hip hop, he is the essence of hip hop, and to see him be an individual who can act so brilliantly and to be a true fan of hip hop, you know I say I grew up breakdancing on cardboard in Baltimore, to Slick Rick’s La Di Da Di so to actually be a filmmaker, and to have one of the pillars of the hip hop community put it down, I mean, come on, man. Come on.
Dennis Haysbert and Charles S. Dutton
Q: You guys have had such long, amazing careers, what made you say yes to Luv?
Dennis: The script, the story, the director, the writer. You know, he was passionate about it, I read the script before I met him, so I was already hooked, because I said, man, you know, if he could execute this blueprint, the way it’s written…and then I found out that Charles was in it, and then Danny, I said “oh man, this is like, you know, Mingus, The Coal Train.” All these guys getting together, if I can be so bold to put myself in that company, but you know, it was like, oh man, we get to riff with these guys? I mean, I only wish I had a scene with this man, you know, so it was a lot of fun.
Charles: But it was also wanting to help out a young African American director, give him the kind of cast that will spoil him from now on, he’s going to be totally spoiled, you know, totally spoiled, but we should be, we should be accessible to the young filmmakers coming out, and giving them that kind of break, because if we don’t do it, who’s gonna do it? But also the camaraderie of it all, I walked away, you know, Danny and I have known each other thirty years, only worked together once together in a film, then, in this together, but no scenes. So, Dennis and I, we worked in one movie, Random Hearts, but we had no scenes.
Q: Were you surprised by Michael’s performance in the movie?
Dennis: Not surprised at all, just whelmed. I won’t say overwhelmed, I will say whelmed. This young man, he brought it, you know, I said twelve years old. I said, man, how old are you? I said, you’re a smurf, you’re a midget, man, who are you? He was a little man-child.
Charles: Modest, and very, just you talk to him, and talk about acting, but he has already, at twelve years old, what you really need to have to be a good actor. That’s honesty, just pure honesty, looking the other fellow in the eye, and telling the truth. From fact to fact, and he has that, at twelve years old. When he looks at you and talks to you in a scene, you simply believe him, and the nice thing about that is when you don’t have to act.
Interviewing Michael Rainey Jr. and Common
Q: Being from Chicago have you experienced something similar?
Common: Oh yeah, I mean definitely know many people that are Vincent, or Fish or Woody, you know I know many people that have been through similar situations, and you know, that’s part of what exists in the inner city, you know, like in Chicago, in Detroit, in Compton, in New York City, any city in America you can go to, Baltimore, is where you can get the story of Woody. A young man who wants to do good, but his father figure is feeding him some things that are not going to provide for a good life for him.
Q: Michael, ahead of time, you knew you were working with Common, and Charles, and Dennis, were you at all nervous?
Michael: No, not at all, I was just excited, because I get to work with my favorite rappers, and my idols of acting, stuff like that.
