INTERVIEW: Mario & Mandela Van Peebles On 'Outlaw Posse,' Working Relationship, Melvin Van Peebles Impact +More

Published Feb 21, 2024, 1:42 PM
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Wake that answer up in the morning.

The Breakfast Club Morning.

Everybody's DJ, Envy Jesse, larrys Charlamane the guy.

We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests in the building. We have Mario and Mandela van Peebles.

Welcome, Hey man, good to be here.

How's it feeling.

How y'all feeling good man, It's a little cold, but we're happy to be here.

Okay, I'm old enough to remember when it was Melvin and Mario.

Yeah, Mario, they keep going, wow, yeah, you know, it's interesting. The other day I looked up and I realized I was telling Mandela this. My father gave me my first lines ever in the Future film, and then I gave him his last lines ever in the Future film.

Wow.

This is a trippy circle, Like how many people get that in their lives, you know what I mean?

And when I did.

Posse thirty years ago, years years ago, I didn't have kids and and but I had my dad. And then this time when I did Outlaw Posse, I didn't have my dad, but I got Mandela. So I'm like the connective tissue absolutely, you know. So uh.

Outlaw Posse the unofficial sequel, our official sequel.

It's posse, you know, it's it's a Western. It's just you know, like Clint Eastwood did a bunch of spaghetti westerns. It's a different Western. It's not really, but it is a multi culty, wild ass group of cowboys and cow women. I guess you would say, uh, differently than before. So it's you know, before we had like like a and posse, we had Big Daddy Kane and Tone and Woodie Strode and the Hdland brothers and Blair Underwood and Sally Richardson and big cast that's the And this time we've got who got get to the mic, what Cedric? We got DC young Fly, we got Whoopy Goldberg. She didn't. I didn't cast Whoopy. Whoope cast herself playing this role. I was shooting something for Rizza Wu Tang Clan American Saga next door in Jersey to where Whoopie lives. So she came over, like, what's all this racket? And then we met and I said, she said, I've always wanted to do western. I said, I got this script I'm doing and she said, stage coach Mary, stage coach Marry. And that's how that came about. Really, Yeah, and we just it's one of those things where you meet someone like me and you just like, I want to do it, and then I'm really one of those guys. I will really call you up and be like, Okay, here's the dates, let's go, and she's like, I'm there, Montana, what are we doing?

Wow?

And because a lot of folks don't know that almost one out of three cowboys was black. You know, you look at the old westerns, you don't see that because we basically they call black man boys as a derogatory term. So and we got the harder jobs, the dirty job. So it's like take care of the horses, boy, take care of the cowboy. So once they said it's a cowboy, that's where the name came from. White guys like being called rough riders and and so once the Hollywood glorified cowboys, they flipped it up and they had they didn't have us playing them kind of like you know, we know the hot heavyweight champs looked like Jack Johnson Allie Tyson, but they'll make him look like Rocky in Hollywood. Just one of those things. So really, when you look at out Law Posse, you'll see like real history where you'll see some of the real characters in the movie, and the movie you'll see, oh, I thought that guy was made up. No, this is. We based the whole look on this dude. So you'll see the real people at the end. And you'll see with Whoopy Goldberg, how close she gets the stage coach Mary.

What's the significance of stage coach Mary's inclusion in the film?

Well, she is, you know, she has her own stage coach line that she ran up through Montana, had a big old cigar and a big old shotgun. And in the movie, there comes a point where Edward James almost is in the movie and our posse this knuckleheads with me in the posse, but I don't know he's a spy. Look at the noise. But okay, I'm gonna tell you what. There's a scene where we're going to buy some dry goods. We've just had a bank robbery go wrong. All kinds of stuff is going wrong, so we going.

He's like, come on, hold up, I'm just giving a little little fractional stuff.

So they we go in to the dry goods store and Edward James almost comes out with his gun. He's like, what y'all here for? And we go in there and when we come out, all the horses are gone, and we're in the middle of nowhere, and he starts cracking up. We're like, why are you laughing mad? He's like, because the Originals they don't believe the originals of the Indians, he said, they don't believe that God that we have the right to own any of God's creatures. But before you get mad, my wife was born enslave. Those same Native Americans set my wife free. So it starts to us. So we lose all our horses and we got to hit your ride with none other than there. You gotcha.

I didn't get way too much to us.

How I was working with your dad.

It's good.

I had a lot of practice tonight.

It's fun.

Obviously I've been his son for a while now. So on camera, we don't I don't know if he looks like I don't know. He just followed me a round.

As for ship, yeah, okay, no, but we have we have.

A relationship that luckily we get to wear different hats and this time we got to wear some cowboy hats and shoot some guns. And what's what's cool actually working with him at a work thing. Usually he's directing or acting, but this time he got to do both, and so he's directing and acting and I'm also playing his son.

So it's a.

Pretty rare one when we work together. Sometimes you're behind, I'm in front or yeah yeah. And it's what's cool is that he can ride. He's a cowboy. He can He did all his own stunts. You're not only when you're doing it like because Outlaw Posse. He's a mean ass independent. So it's not like you're gonna see a lot of billboards or anything. It's more word of mouth, right, And we just won Best Feature at the Pan African Thank You, So when you do a feature like this, you really rely on people to do a lot of It's not c g I, it's not Ai is real guy. So when he rides in, not only does he have to I have to get along with him, but with his horse because there's a lot of scenes where he's got a racing and we do it in one shot, so he'll racing on his horse and he got to save dad, you know what I mean. And and the thing about working with your son like this is we didn't have to fake the love. So when you look at it on camera like we clown and play together. We don't have to fake the love and so so you're going in with people that really get it and know their roles, and that's that's fun.

All the actors know how to handle and ride horses or.

If they didn't like that, DC had to go to cowb I was gonna ask.

I don't know if he was on a horse like that.

Yeah, I had to get on a horse just because he from the South, you think rode horses.

He was on a horse.

They have brothers out there that ride on Atlanta horse in Atlanta.

But he was.

He was at the he was at the screening and I asked him how many times have you rode since He's like, I.

Got a horse. Now he got a horse. Yeah, okay, so yeah he had to and and Cedric Cedric didn't have to ride. So Cedric's in there, and uh oh in Allan Payne. Allen Payne can ride from New Jack City. I was like calling up all my old connects, come on out, let's do it. And it was mad fun.

Oh you still you mentioned Alapaine.

Are you still surprised of the influence of New Jack City across generations.

It's a trip. In fact, we played with it. I'm not gonna say nothing. No, look, no fake asked for calling things, you know what I mean? No, no am I surprised. Yeah, I was surprised. Here's the thing. You know, in most gangster films, you emotionally connect with the gangster. Right, that's easy. I mean, that's it's easy to get to. The trick in Nwjack was to not make the crime victimless by having the audience connect up with the victim. So I was two guys I was looking at. One was named Martin Lawrence and what was named Chris Rock to play the victim. And when that's what the trick was to say, Okay, we see the cost to our community of this stuff. When people watch New Jack City, yeah, they look at West that's the badass character, but they also look at the cops too. You know, you had good role models to say yes to, because if you want folks to say no emotionally, you better have some role models to emotionally say yes to. Right, you feel me, But in the middle, to have the victim get addicted to crack and we deglamorize the heck out of it. You know, so you see them in the alleyway. We nothing cute about that. So I've had people come up to me after seeing it said, man, I love the movie. I never wanted to touch No Crack after seeing New Jacksony. So that was one of the things that I was proud of, is trying to not just entertain us, and that's the thing without Law Posse, but editain us and Mandela can tell you, yeah, you could tell them that there's a lot of stuff in Outlaw Posse that's really relevant today. You know, we're so divided as a country, they say right now because some of us watch MSNBC, CNN and they watch Fox News or whatever, and we have different facts. But we'll all hopefully come together and watch it western we made this Gumbo would love.

So I quoted New jack City.

I was on This Week ABC with Jonathan Carr Sunday and I quoted New Jackson. I said, because I was talking about how, you know, the vice president she needs to pivot and start, you know, speaking up more. And I was like, you know, I know that historically the role of the vice president is just the parrot the president, but I was just like yo for New jack for New Jack problems.

We need new Jack.

Yeah, and we're in a different time with that, and you can't you can't come at it, you know, you got to come at it ready. And and this that's the other reason I wanted to do at La Posse now is that there's a whole scene where we go in there and and we deal with some voting right issues.

You know.

So there's stuff you'll find in out La Posse where it's like, oh wow, that's happening right now. Yeah, you know, right, even environmental stuff. Right. I don't want to get the spoilers away. You really got to check it out. March first.

Yeah, you know, we're seeing a lot more Westerns with black cast What about that time period should black people be tapping into? What should we be learning from that time period? Well?

I think well, I think there was a big sense, you know, because it was after Look, one of the things that comes up is that in eighteen sixty three up until that, because we do a scene with Whoopee on the stage coach and she looks at him and she said, boy, you know, you're lucky. You're the first generation of black men that legally gets to have a black father because until eighteen sixty three, you couldn't have a black father. Legally, the slave master made all the decisions for the kids. You had nothing to do with it. In fact, they sell you. Yeah, ask somebody it somewhere else.

Wow.

So she said, you know, so we've only had since eighteen sixty three to get our father. Game on. Make it eighteen sixty five if you're in Texas. Right. So we bring up some interesting points. I think one of the things that we can learn from the Western is that there was still this sense of do for self. Yes, some of us were lucky enough to go across the country and cover wagons. Other of us had to wrap some canvas around our feet and walk, you know what I mean. The other thing is that I think is I think Mandela mentioned is that you know what's interesting is that the Native American folk and the African folk had a respect for nature. Right. It was only the colonizer was sort of saying, oh, no, just chop down those tree, kill all the buffalo. Do this, Commodify it, sell it, chop it up, package it, kill it, wrap it up. And once you, once you imitate the people that would buy and sell you, what have you become and so you kind of look back and wait a minute, we don't have to imitate the people that would buy and sell us. And when you look at that and you realize, wow, a lot of us. There were enslaved folks who ran away with the Native Americans and became known as the black Seminoles. You know. Now historically in a movie they'd be played as white guys. We're not doing that, you know, we're showing everybody. So I think one of the you can look back at and see. I think it's this. If you don't know where you were, it's hard to know where you're going, right, So having an idea of your history, you go, oh, we overcame that before with Tolsa, Oklahoma. Okay, we we deal with reparations. We know what's going on. You know, reparations really were supposed to go to us, but they they gave reparations. They just gave him the slave for loss of property. That comes up in out Law polse.

Wow.

Yeah.

Why was it important for the film to reflect the diversity of the War of the Wild Wildwell.

There's a great quote by King all mess Up where he says, we either all learn to live together as brothers and sisters, and we all perished together as fools. And I think once you go, oh wow, the Chinese brothers and they built the railroad, you know, we built everything. Uh, Native Americans were here, the border moved across Mexico. You know, when you realize we all had a part in it, then you take a different pride in it, and you're not just fighting for the America you've been. Maybe you're fighting for the America we still can be. And we have an election year coming up. So my hope is that if you make film like New Jack but film that makes people think. Maybe they think when they order food, maybe they think when they drive a car, maybe they think when they vote.

Why do you think it's still difficult to make films?

I mean I've seen I think I interviewed and said it was so difficult to make New Jack City back in the day.

And this is an independent film. Is it still very difficult for a black.

Director to get things done and get the money, to get the you know, the necessary promotion and to get the necessary funding.

Is it still very difficult?

Well, here's the thing. I made a movie a couple of years ago called Badass about my dad and I all saw that where he made sweet Back. And he made sweet Back at a time when you know, there was no black leads in movies. You couldn't even have facial hair as a black man in a movie. And he made sweet Back, and he found an unknown group named Earth's Wind and fired to do the soundtrack, and that movie became a big hit. And then after that Hollywood made they said, well, we want to do some more of those, so they made a movie written by two Jewish guys, written movie, and they said let's do it in black, and that became Shaft, and they got Isaac Hayes who was twenty four years old from Stacks Record, and then after that they had Superfly. Now what the Black Panthers said about Sweetback was Sweetback made being a revolutionary hip and made going up against the man and the status quo hip. Shaft cool movie imitated the icing, but not necessarily the cake, because that movie makes working with the man hip, and then Superfly made dealing drugs against your own people for the man hip. So the Panthers maintained that the icings look cool, same, you know, good looking brother, flashy clothes, good soundtrack, but the revolutionary core of the cake was being drained out. Similar thing happened with hip hop. Right may start off saying the revolution won't be televised or fight the power, but at certain point, when the corporations or the corpses get involved, the content gets trained out. So all that to say, if you're the kind of filmmaker or the kind of hip hop artist, whatever, the kind of artist that just wants to do what they tell you to do, you can get the funding. But if you want to make a movie like Outlaw Posse that says, nah, man, you're gonna see us a different way. You're gonna see some badass women because they were here. You're gonna see some badass brother. This is one out of three cowboys was black. The guy who inspired me to make my first Western really was Eastwood. I did a movie called Heartbreak Ridge with Eastwood so and he unforgiven, he put more in Freeman in there. Literally it was almost like one out of three cowboys was black. So I wanted to do the kind of movies that I want to do. Not all the time. Sometimes I just want to make the money, okay for real, But sometimes when it's all about the heart, I want to make a movie that says something. And when you got to do that. If I take their money, if you take McDonald's money, you can't make supersize me. Show me. If I take the studios money, then I have to do the studio line. I wanted this movie to be out law posse, be real and gritty, and use people that played the roles and say the stuff we wanted to say that was happening there that we usually just whitewatch. And we're the point in history right where you know, they what are they calling slaves now? And slave people and unpaid workers working. Yeah, yeah, so they're they're they're taking it. Look, it used to be illegal to teach a black person to read, and now it's going to be illegal to read about an enslaved person. Yeah, you know what I mean. We're getting to a weird place where we need to look at our history and go, Okay, we did this before. We're all here. Make the gumbo would love build it and they will come. And that's not a movie that necessarily is gonna get financing easily, I guess.

I guess that's also the beauty of a movie like New Jack City, because when you talk about how people didn't want to, you know, use crack. It makes you not want to sell it either. Right when you see somebody impressing their own people in that way.

And if your consciousness is there, I'm not sure you have a different consciousness depending on what what consciousness you have. That's the level of movie you'll see. Do you feel me? It's like, and that's the same thing without laposse. Depending on your level of consciousness, you're gonna go, oh wow, I tuned into that, but somebody else, you know, might just tune into something else. You know, So it's your consciousness is clearly there, because I would look at that and go, yeah, everyone in k new Jack the touch Crag died. Yeah right everyone. But for some people it was like, well, we don't see an option. We've got to make our way out of no way. But you got to figure out a better way.

Yeah, especially if you oppressing all those people. Yeah, hey, you ruining the whole community.

Yeah, well that's what they call a self cleaning oven, you know what I'm saying. So when you look at at a Western like this, you know we this is this is you know, this takes place in nineteen oh eight. What's going on in nineteen oh this brother finally got a chance to be the heavyweight champ and he whipped everyone's ass. And his name was Jack Johnson. That's not been a nineteen oh eight before women could vote this as sister named stage coach, Mary got her own stage coach line. She say, if they can make money off me, I can make money off me. I'm gonna do my own thing, you know what I mean. And then you have the fictional characters of us. So you got this crazy father and son and I don't know why what his real motivation for writing me with Me is, but it comes out in the course of the little Don't trust his ad.

I know the dynamic between the Chief and Angel and the movie represent like the interplay between good and evil, right, our morality and justice? How does that dynamic add to the store?

Well, that's a real layered one man, because he the cat that plays Angel is named William ay Pothers. First of all, what I wanted and was important for this was to have really smart actors. That I wanted that if you looked at them, they weren't just playing a role. You could believe they knew a lot about it. And so this cat that I wanted with Angel. He's he doesn't really think of himself as the bad guy. He's just he you know, he's just grown up feeling like an entitled guy, like it's all for him. This country is built for me. Women can't vote, Hispanics can't vote, and we had the Mexican American War. Chinese can't vote. We've got the Chinese Exclusion Act, you know what I mean. They do all these this trickology to keep you from voting, just like they do now, just like they're doing in Georgia, and they're gonna do in Florida. You know, we've campaign in Florida. We know what that's about. So it's kind of the French ever was saying, pus las mem and more things change, the more they stay the same. And you're going to see some of that in the movie and go, oh sweat, that's like what's happening right now. But the character, the bad guy, the antagonist, is the guy that believes America's only for him. And when the we rob a bank, and we rob a bank do some crazy stuff, DC young Fly gets to rob a bank, we'll give out way one thing, got one thing. He robs the bank and he's in this guys, I'm not gonna tell him what the dis guy's.

Okay, we've seen the disguise on the trailer.

No you haven't. I don't think you have.

Okay, okay, maybe you have.

That wasn't the misters?

Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, but it maybe it further than that. So we rob a bay and then the sheriff is totally befuddled. When he comes out. He says, man, black and white and cahoots together, working together. Who could have seen that happening? And so in the course of our movie that the outlaw strength is their diversity. America. Part of America's strength is our diversity. You know, good allies coming our all colors.

Yeah, you can't put you can't stereotype no criminals right.

There, No no, no, no, no good allies coming off colors. Man. And that's that's the maturity when you go. It's something Malcolm came came to realize too. It's not not your skin color, it's where your heart is, you know, so kind of touching on what you get to the microphone.

So what you mentioned, though good and evil, that that kind of dynamic at play.

I was just thinking about that.

It's interesting that evil is represented by the law abiding angel and then the good is the outlaws.

And and that goes to our tagline, which says, you know, slavery it was legal. Not allowing women to vote was legal, legal, right, Jim Crow? Legal? Destroying nature still legal. When the laws are unjust, the.

Just are outlaws, like Wade, now exactly, you know what I mean.

So the laws really is more about who has the power versus what's just and what's correct.

You know what I mean.

And so we we come into a place in this movie where we have the choice of just going for the gold or stopping to correct a couple things, some injustices on the way. I didn't say nothing.

But watch the movie with you guys.

Yeah, I'd be like the dude in the back of the forty dude the screen at my own screen.

Why did you decide a major movie as opposed to a Netflix or streaming service.

Because I like, here's the thing. When you watch TV, TV is small and man is big. When you watch a movie, man it's small. Movie is big, and I like to sit up there. Plus, when you watch a movie, you paint some money to sit in the movie, you put your devices down, you put your toys down, you know what I mean, You pick your popcord up, and if the movie doesn't suck, you stay right in there and you get into it and you're engaged in it. I love that.

It's very hard to watch movies at home.

Yeah.

I don't know why we think that's a good thing, because you're too distracted.

Well you know, and plus I'm the kind of dude I'll be like, shut up, I want to see it. Unless it's a comedy, then I like to go see it right straight in the hood. We live right right good in the hood, so I'll go right down there. Okay, I know I'm part of the audience is going to be part of the movie. There's always that joke at the top. In fact, we just played at the Pan African and it was certain lines you couldn't hear because people was talking to the screen. It was fun, you know. So some of that interactive thing we we watched film kind of like we interact with art, and whereas some cultures have grown up being reverential with art, you know, like a museum or something, you get all in the touch it, take a photo of it, it's like walking down the street in New York. It's like, white folks recognize me and they're kind and they can't have a picture. Black folks they're related to you. Come on, shut up, you better take get um, you know. So there's a different there's a different quality at you know day you.

Talking about allyship.

I wonder how does the allyship of stage coach Marry contribute to the development of of of Chief and other characters?

Right? Well, see, well there was a lot of issues. Right One was that one of her rules was you're gonna ride on my stage coach, you gotta stole your weapon. So that was all already dealing with, you know, Western we lost our horse at a certain we got to get him back, and I got stolen my weapon. It's like, wait, but that's some second amendment, like well, you want to be on my stage coach, Mary's stagecoach Mary's rules, you know. And then she asked me, she says, do you remember your dad, your pop? After she talks to him, and I said, yeah, man, they hung him for trying to teach me to read. And then they told me to call some all white priest father and the slave owner master and they said, by law, I had to take the master's last name. So I knew what all them bullshit laws. I was going to grow up to be an outlaw for sure, you know what I mean. So there's a lot of knowledge that would be drops that sort of prompt. So you go, you think about stuff and you go, wow, that white folks need to hear two black folks need to hear. But we go, wow, that makes total sense. You know. When you lay it out like that, it's like, remember the beginning of Posse. At the beginning of Posse, Woody Strode, who was the first brother I saw in a western that didn't show Woodie Strode says, history is a funny thing. They got us thinking Columbus discovered America, but there was already people here just like me putting my flag on your car and saying get out your car. I'm gonna call you evil, red savage, you know what I mean. So when you look, when you break down the whole origin story of this country, you really see it's a really all inclusive story and it's still a wonderful country. And still we got all this crazy potential. There's a lot. So I'm like the character towards the end, says I'm fighting for the America we can be, not just America we've been. You know.

I love the quote in the film Angel says to willis that religion is the story we tell ourselves about the future. History is the story we tell about the past, and it's told by those in power, right.

It's found that. Yeah, man, well thank you for noticing that. That was something I wrote that line with Melvin in my head. My daddy used to say history is a book written by the winner, right, And so once you understand that, you go, oh, so they're telling you a history that sets up how they want you to be, you know. Franz Fina says, the best colonizers always left behind the churches and the schools so that they could socialize the oppressed to the oppressor's point of view, right, and that one good priest could do the work of one hundred soldiers. You know. So the thing is, you got to read to learn. I mean, you got to learn to read, but then you got to read to learn. And when you really start to read your own books, and you read the biography of Malcolm and you read the history of Ethiopia, and you understand how they do They beat back the Italians and we're never colonized. We don't learn about that history, the Battle of Odwa, you know what I mean. And you learn about the West and you go, oh wow, you mean Jack Johnson then went off, you got a white wife, and him and his white wife opened up a club called Black and Tan where folks of all colors were welcome. I didn't know that, do you know what I mean? I didn't know that. I mean, you just learned so much and when you learn it, you can't up but go, wow, we were here, we were doing our things. So lines like that where you say it's a book written by the winner, we really all can be winners. It doesn't have to be replacement like okay, if if if you win and then I'm naturally losing, that's that's that's not correct. We can actually win together, you know, and actually right, And I got white people in my family, for real. I got white gay I even got a Trumper in my family. So I got love with open arms, you know what I mean. So that's why even in New Jack City, man, I mix it up. I paint with all the colors. When I make a movie, I'm not trying to make reactionary film or do under them like they've done onto us. I want to do unto them as I'd like them to do unto us, but also do on them in a real way.

That quote also shows that basically like the narrative of history can be manipulated or shaped by whoever is in the position about totally what's happening now?

Absolutely, I mean, I was just in Cartagena, Columbia. We went to a part called Polenke. I never heard it before.

Brother.

Everyone looks like us. They just don't sound like us, you know. So you go there to brother comeing to hey, kay, I'll the good thing over it. You know, you're like, whoa, what are you saying? Brother? And you realize we always, all of us are speaking the colonizers' languages. We don't know our own languages, We don't know a name. But in Polenki they have this area where all the freed slaves went. And finally Spain had to cut a deal with them because they were so strong and they couldn't be beaten. They said, we'll let you have your freedom under one condition. You have to keep a white church in the center of your town. And it was like so clear. It was like, if you keep our white daddy, we will leave you alone.

You know.

So when you really look at that, you go wow, wow. You know what I mean the most listen, this is one of the last conversations I had with my dad was he said, the modern day colonizer doesn't put chains on your body, the chains on your mind. The first step to free your mind is to control your own inma the image of what you can be, the image of what you think you can be. If you look at a western go you, man, I could be a cowboy. I could be in the West. I could be this, I could be I could do whatever that sets you free, your imagination free. And this man grew up Mandela grew up seeing his granddad and his dad as cowboys. You know what I mean. That's that's a real dope freedom to have.

You have the audition for this mandal for years, right, Yeah, No, I was.

I was a little bit privy to it as I was still in the writing process.

So it's something that he knows.

I have a love for horses and all things nature, So I think it was kind of in the back of his mind.

It was written for you.

I wouldn't say for me, but I would be pretty mad if someone else was playing in Sun.

And the thing is, this guy can act his ass off. He's in that show Reginald the Vampire. He plays a black panther. It was turned into a vampire because the the arc of history does bend towards justice, but it takes too long. So if you're a vampire, y're around and he was, you're the What was that Mary of Kings, Mary of Kingston. Yea, I said, Jeremy Renner. Yeah, so he's doing a lot of acting, so it wasn't just like I picked him up. Listen, someone gonna be LaToya Jackson. Even if you're a Jackson doesn't mean you're gonna act, you know what I mean? You know, if you're a vample doesn't mean you're gonna act so and look at like the Jackson's but we just don't have the talent.

Do you feel pressure following in your possible.

It's interesting because that word, I don't know. I don't feel pressure per se. I feel it's more like a resource I can tap into more so, like even even with the self tapes, the auditioning process, just having him around when I need him is great even when I'm out of town or not not around. He can make time to even watch something just putting eyes on it, and and I think that's yeah, not so much a pressure but a resource and kind of like, thank you man.

I was just thinking about that.

He really he really helps me out and he wants to see me win. So there is, you know, an external pressure maybe from people looking I'm happy with myself. I could I could make it and be happy, or I could, you know, have a restaurant and be happy. So really, I I do this because I enjoy the craft growing up watching him basically support us, and I've got a big family playing Make Believe.

That's a pretty cool job.

So I've always kind of admired that, And yeah, would I wouldn't say it's a pressure. I would say it's a it's kind of a hope to live up to that.

In a way, Mario.

For you, how important is it to continue to filmmaking lineage within your family by having your son NFL?

Well, you know, I remember a certain point my dad and I I had I done of New Jack City and then I did Posse and the movies were doing well and Hollywood was of saying, what do you want to do next? When I want to do Posse after New Jack. The critics came after me and they said, oh, he's trying to make Old Jack City boys in the boys in the Saddle until they saw the movie. And then my dad said, what do you want to do next? I said, man, I want to do that. Because he had written a book on the Black Panthers. I said, I want to turn your book on the Black Panther Party for Self Defense into a movie. He said, they're not gonna let us. Hollywood ain't ready for that. And we went to Hollywood to do it, and he was right, and we had to get the funding independently because what they wanted this was the craziest. They wanted one of the lead Black Panthers to be white.

What Oh my god.

And they said, yeah, man, look, Dances with Wolves is not going to star a Native American. You know, Rocky is not gonna star you know, a brother. You know. You're just at that point, you know. So I was like, oh, okay, I see what you're doing. The dominant culture has to see itself reflect didn't film in a dominant way, and you'll be the exotic backdrop. So we didn't do it, and we had to put the funding together a different way. Well, when we did that, and I directed it and produced it and my dad wrote it and produced it, and we didn't always agree, but you know which it fell into his demand. I went his way, fell into mind, we went my way. He turned to me and he said, man, I love you. I like you, and I admire that you're courageous because we're doing stuff that we know is going to be controversial. Because what we showed with Panther was kind of the prequel to New Jack City, was that it's not an accident that you can get drugs in almost every minority community in America and guns and guns are not made in that community. You know, we don't make oozies in the hood, We don't grow poppy fields in the hood. So how does it get there on a daily basis? And the minu you follow the money, it leaves black hands brown hands very quickly, and you realize, wow, they want us to be medicated, and that to a certain degree, that represents a self cleaning oven. Right, So when we do that kind of film, you're like, WHOA. And now Panther is a really hard movie to find, Like, this is the one movie I made that. It's like, you can't find that movie.

It don't even come up when you google, or maybe I was tripping, I googled just your films.

Yeah, but don't up.

Man. It's like there was a right wing organization that took out ads against it. It was like they just didn't want us to think they they didn't want to. They don't want you to think about that kind of stuff. You just stay in the hood, bopping your head and you know, doing that and don't think about why the drugs. You know, that's that's Malcolm stuff. So what happened was Dad wanted to be a writer. First of all, Melvin wanted to be a tennis player, but he stucked at tennis. He just wanted to go at it. So he said, I want to be a writer. But then he said, he said he got out of writing the direct film, make film. I said, why, Daddy, He said, because folks weren't reading books enough. They were watching movies. So if in the future they go to some other medium and you want to reach the people, you want to reach the folks that are going to get out there and vote and change what tomorrow looks like. Then maybe we have to move mediums. So it's not so important what the vehicle is. But what is important is being a Grilloh, telling our stories, right, telling our stories that set us free, that make us go. And let me just say, you know, we're not really in the business of brain science brain surgery. But when apartheid fell, there were two favorite shows they were watching Miami Vice were A White Leading Man and a Black Bleeding Man and The Cosby Show. And I'm not talking about the Man. I don't want to litigate that. I'm talking about the phenomenon of the show. Course, twenty years before they were the Obamas, it was the Huxtables. Hey man, Now we've got modern family and will and grace. Whatever it changes, how we look at who you love and how you love you feel me. So what's that quote? I love to mess up? This one by Lincoln. He says, with public opinion on your side, you can do almost anything. Without public opinion, it's very hard to get anything done. He who controls public opinion has more power than he or she who makes the laws. We're in the business of culture. I think culture can be healing. If you can make a Western, say, well, America made more Westerns than any of the type of movie. But in most Westerns I saw growing up as a kid, I didn't see us. Right. If you looked at a Western, you saw someone black. They were shuffling and not someone you wanted to be. There was a woman, she was pale, frail and needed rescuing. If there was a Chinese guy, he was hop seeing the houseboy. If there was a Mexican dude, he was the oily bandit who didn't need no stinking botches. And if there was a good only good Indian was a dead Indian. So you were kind of marginalized if you weren't a white guy. But I don't feel the need to this nobody either, right, So we have like we have some badass white characters in it, because that was real. They were there. So I'm just not making reactionary film. Outlaw Posse is probably more representative of what the West looked like, and because of that, it feels revolutionary.

I like reading reviews.

You know, It's interesting how when you see critics they say the film struggles with effectively managing the shifts between comedy and a more serious tone.

When I read that, I'm like.

Well, they don't know what it is to be black now right, Well, here's the other thing.

Life is the drama.

Well, here's the other thing. That's how we survived too. Someone asked my daddy, was my dad all these answers he said? He said, he said, how can we move so fast? Because he well, they killed all the slow ones, beatty, Why didn't get to the top. They didn't let me in at the bottom, you know. But but that's but that's real, and that the people that live the longest centurions, people over one hundred, have one thing, three things in common. The first is sense of humor. We got all these great black comedians. Why great jewice comedians. Why because we both people went through trauma. You go through trauma, you you either die or you laugh. You and then hopefully you laugh and then you get up and make change. Is I'm not saying I'm gonna be laughing. I'm still gonna get my ass up and make a movie that says something. And then you know, and that because we believe is you know the three loves? What are the three loves? Son? Tell your day?

Love what you do?

Yes?

So I got closer to the mic, and here you go. Love what you do, love who you do it with, and love what you say with it.

There you go, and if those three chakras line up, then you're rich, no matter what the paychest. I was in. I was with Dad on fifty sixth Street. He had a place on fifty six We're walking down the street and his brother came up to us. He had long silver dreads and he says, came up behind me, excuse me, the Savannah peoples. I have to say, I love your work. And we both turned around. We didn't know who he was talking to, and he said, I am talking to both of y'all. I'm a fan, but I'm not a groupie. I have to let you know. Sometimes I go to the movies and I'm entertained. That's a good thing. Sometimes I go to the movies and I learned something new, and that's a good thing. And every now and then I go to the movies and I come out proud to be a man of color, and that's a great thing. And with your movies, I get all three Wow, wow, I.

Have the loss of your father impacted you personally and professionally.

It makes me. Enjoy doing ship like this.

You can't.

My dad was a cloud.

You know.

I love to love him, but.

That was like I'm going to wrestle Dad when I leave here.

He got me in. He got me in a little, a little lock the other day. Well yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like, I just tapped out.

I'm not strong, I'm smarter, you know. So I really just had to trick him. He didn't want to go one way that I wanted him to go, so he could open up his next all right, I pushed him the other way.

So he was closing.

Then he just I'll open it up.

He locked me in.

He locked me in.

This guy can he could rubble. He you got a good ground game. He pretty but he got a good ground game. You know what what I miss is our conversation, right, I mean, you know because towards the end hit Alzheimer's and he was starting to fade. I could we could sing songs together because that goes into a different part of the brain, you know when you learn music. I could hold his hand, he could see, he could know who I was. But I miss I miss our conversations, like conversations like this for real, like where you can and that's why I could be here all day talking. You'd be like, you're don't have to get me out of here because you were like this Negro talks too much. But I miss having those good, in depth conversations. And that's again something to go back to the movie. That I wanted the movie to do was to have conversations with America that America is afraid to have with itself. We're afraid to look at stuff and laugh and go oh wow. I never looked at it that way, and do that collectively in a room with people that don't vote like you, think like you, act like you. That's the point. If everyone around you looks and things like you, life will get born. You know what I mean. You got to challenge yourself, you know what I mean. So I missed that because Melvin, dude, I'm gonna tell you when you got a moment to count, So I'll tell you what I missed. This is one thing I so Dad had done sweet back, and we had risked. We risked everything, all of our little family savings, I mean everything. And then the movie blew up and he invited me and my sister out to La to go to a party and I was about fourteen and my sister were thirteen. We had like beautiful afros. We looked like the Jacksons again, go back to that, and she had red hair. So we go to this party and it's a bot miss one. Now we didn't know what the what a bot Mintville was and it was my dad's agent had this thing. So we go there and there are all these kids, mostly Jewish kids, standing around the dance floor, all shy, not wanting to dance, being a little timid. They had a DJ, they had a band, but well, nobody dancing. So me and my sister like, this is a party. Oh they don't know right, the floor would light up if you stepped on it. We're like oh, So we went out there like we were on soul train. We're tearing it up. They all started up plotting us and they came around the plot and my sister, my sister and I were dancing and my dad watching and you never know what Melvin van Peebles is gonna think. And he signaled us over and I said, I don't know what this guy's about to say. And we followed him into their library. This family had a McMansion, big old library, it looked like something you had of Beauty and the Beast. And Daddy took his cigar out and he said, uh, you know, I love y'all. Y'all are beautiful, and you did. It's like you're on soul train. But I feel sorry for you because you're going to miss out on half of half of life. What and he said, yeah, man, he said, listen, we got to love two things about people. You gotta love who they are, but you also got to love who you are when you're with them, right, And the way you're dancing on that floor, it's not inviting other people to dance with you. In fact, it's intimidating. It almost looks like a challenge, like if they don't know the latest steps, don't have the perfectness, or that don't even bother coming out on the dance floor. So you're never gonna know what that tall Jewish brother is thinking right there and might man, he's been to Auschawitz, And I said, Ausha, what he said exactly, You don't know. You're not gonna know what that little Asian girl is thinking. You're not gonna know. You're gonna miss out on half of life because you're not bringing out the beauty and others, and then he dropped the mic and I was said wow. Me and my sister went back on the dance floor. I got the girl up, she got the old dude up. We got people involved. By the time we laughed left, we had everyone up, dancing, hanging out, having fun. And one of those guys at that party later on wound up funding one of my movies when I became an adult. Wowow, And he said, good wow life. Good allies come in all colors, you know. Then the lesson was don't leave love on the table. Some may not look like you or vote like you. Your strength is diversity. Get out there and listen to what other people are doing, and sometimes you may learn something. You may go, oh, you know what, Let me try that. Let me try his workout or her workout. What's she doing? I need to know what they're doing. Wow. I say, he was such a curious, and he had an intellectual curiosity that I missed a lot of people. We're happy if we just watched our own show with our own news facts, and we just want to see stuff that confirms what we already think. But the strength is, did you learn a new word? Today.

Man, I agree so much. Man.

That's why I was even when I when I brought up the New Jack City reference on on with Jonathan Carr. That's what I was in reference to because I was saying, how the vice president needs to go mix it up on Fox News.

Will Obama?

I want to do that with this one. I was like, put me on Fox then let me get them. They see Westerns, you know, and once you hear it, once you listen. Somebody came up to me from Fox News once it was a right wing radio station. It was after nine to eleven, and I was with my kids and they were like, what do you think of nine to eleven? I said, well, listen, first of all, well he said, what do you black people think of nine eleven? I said, dude, I can only answer for me. I don't represent black people. I can only represent my own crazy idea. But let me just say this. If you have children, and my eldest daughter says I'm going to hit my brother because he hit me, my first question is a thinking father would be did you do anything that might make your brother want to hit you? Before I condone, you're hitting him back? You know what I mean? Before you get into a military stance with your brother. Did he did you do anything to him that might provoke me? Why do you hit you? Right? That's the simple, And that's a Republican or Democrat. I said, we got hit in nine to eleven, okay, but we framed it as not patriotic to ever ask the question is there anything being done abroad that might make folks want to hit us? A minute you look at that, the minute you go, oh wow, why is this going down over here? Why is that? And you have to look at it, you go, oh, there's usually something some some something to it. It's not just people just hate you randomly, you know. It's like you got to kind of look at what's going on. And when you look around, like that thing I was telling you about Cartagena, where they say, yeah, we'll take you. You just have to take our Coca cola and our gods and all this and all that, and then you have your freedom, you know what I mean. So I think what I'm what I miss is Melvin's intellectual curiosity, and and that was a lot of that came through travel seeing how if you travel around people that you will see, oh wow, they're doing the same thing we do or they they look at it a different way. And you learn a lot when you travel. So part of it is like in this dude, he's always traveling. He's been That's what he was. He was teaching in Africa. Man, but he was a kid, you know, got bit by a line, right, Wow?

Yeah, I got two more questions about outlaw policy.

Was the disconnect between the chief's public and private identity done on purpose?

To humanism? How do you mean, like was it just done on like?

Did you separate the identities his public how he was in public as opposed to personal with his family.

Did you do that? The humanism more?

Well, well he has yes. I mean I don't know if I did it directly to humanize him. You know, I was thinking about that Johnny Cash song the Boy Named Sue, where he grows up Like there's a great quote by Mark Twain where says, all my life my father was an idiot, but at twenty one he was a genius, meaning that I got old enough to understand what he was doing. So part of what I wanted in the father's son dynamic was an evolutionary vibe where you go, oh, now I've spent time with a cat. Now I understand why he did what he did, but you wouldn't understand it younger, you know, man, Just like in my life, I didn't always like Melvinvap, especially early on I thought he was a paternal fascist. But later on, when I said, man, I want to act and there were no good roles as an actress, I said, these roles are terrible. You know, I'm getting offered Thug one, two and three and it's not working. So I guess I got to write. So I who's gonna teach me how to write? So I went to Melvin people. I wrote this first script that was a great script, gave it to my dad. He said, huh, it's a piece of shit. Hey, I said, what do you mean he needs work? He said, nope, you can't polish the third son he was article. I said, okay, So I got better, better, better. Then I went to get the script done. Couldn't get a director, so I said, well, I guess I learned to direct. And each step that I took I had to go back to him and learn more. And finally at the end I realized he had equipped me. My mom showed me the mountain, and he equipped me to learn how to carry climb the mountain.

Wow.

So yes, there were separations in it with chiefs, you know, public and private persona, but they're they're connected. It's not like he doesn't is not. I tried this in life that the Mario I am as at least friends with the Mario. I try to be that them two jokers are not in separate rooms, you know what I mean. I'm never going to be as cool as ID like to be, you know, but but they're close, do you know what I mean? Where I go, and especially as you get older, you get more like, man, I'm just gonna be myself, you know what I mean, Because.

You project that script and authority in public, but sometimes you find difficulty with meeting that expectation in your house totally.

And here's the thing, the cleaner you get with it, and this is what I mean by that, the more that your dreams and aspirations become your words, and then your words become your deeds, and then your deeds become your actions, then the more you affect your reality in immediate way. Right, So thoughts become your words, words become your deeds, your deeds become your actions, and so I find that and there's always a gain, but I find them more that I go. Like even this morning, like this guy he'sid, okay, Dad, Like last night, he'll be like, Okay, let's get one hundred in. So we do it. We're gonna go eat. We're gonna go eat. It's late. We just flew in from La, but we're gonna do one hundred push ups before we go, you know what I mean. So we were just like, but I have to go before lazy Marios starts to go. Well, you know, I really should make a phone call. And maybe I didn't stretching up because that negro will slow me down. I have to get up and go quick before his lazy ass gets up. So I realized there are different Marios and it just depends on which one I want to listen to. Gotcha, you know, I gotta.

I just want to finish the last question, My last question.

Questions by the way, New Jack City.

Yes, sir, you traumatized me for a long time. Why did the light skin brother have to get stabbed in the hand?

I loved it?

This was a question that Will Smith brought up.

Traumatized me for a long time.

Man, Anyway, one of the greatest scenes in cinema.

History scene you know what? You know what it was the I I wanted to just when I make a film, I want to just let it rip. And there were scenes with Wesley for real, Wesley and Allen Payne and Alan Pain's in Outlaw posit and there were scenes because we laughed and talked about it where they just did their thing, and I had the good sense as a director to get the hell out the way, no ego and go, man, they got magic, let me just film the magic, you know what I mean? Uh? And there was just moments that Wesley would do stuff and we're like, oh, that just works. It'd be killing it. You know. I still look back at when I watched that movie and think, man, that's one of his baddest roles. Man, he tore it up. He really inhabited the role. I mean, yeah, but I hear what just and I'm not gonna say nothing, but you'll see some reference to that. Youys thought you and Alan was related, right.

Man?

I don't even look at them as light skin but related.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Well that's interesting because there's a reason for that too. In out Laws. Yeah, go feed back to so so yeah, and Allan has a great vibe. We we hang now during the you know, it's like you. The good thing is like the guy that's the same at twenty as he is is forty didn't grow much, you know what I mean, you got and so the more we grow is man, the more we've gotten closer and go Many, you saw this and I can see that. And Alan's so smart and thoughtful, and he's good in this movie. Man, he did some stuff in this movie that's wow. So I'd be proud to be I'm his cinematic brother. Absolutely.

All right, Well, we appreciate you brothers for joining us.

Our posse is our March first, Yes.

Man, Many real man, Della van Peebles, what are we gonna say?

I was just gonna say that again because when independent film, you're not gonna see huge billboards everywhere. It's word of mouse. So people can go on my instagram, Mario van Peebles, I'm easy to find or you know, and and and see it. But it's gonna be March first, but it won't be at every theater, so you got to go out and make it happen, all right, you know what I mean?

That's right, it's the break this club, good morning.

Wake that ass up Earth in the morning. At Breakfast Club,