Tyrese Gibson and Deon Taylor Interview: Black and Blue
The new police drama, Black and Blue, features Tyrese Gibson delivering one of the most powerful performances of his career. As director Deon Taylor describes it, Tyrese represents "the entire culture," of black men just trying to survive in post-Katrina New Orleans, a city of gangs and political corruption, in a country that doesn't want them to succeed. Naomie Harris stars as Alicia West, an African-American police officer (and hardened war veteran) who is forced to battle against a gang of crooked cops who want to silence her for witnessing the violent execution of unarmed drug dealers.
Black and Blue is a socially relevant white-knuckle thriller, with palpable kinetic energy balanced out by an acute awareness of racial politics in 2019. Unlike so many big-budget blockbusters, which shy away from making any kind of statement for fear of upsetting any particular demographic, Black and Blue fearlessly dives into the troubled relationship between cops and the communities they're supposed to protect and serve. In the film, the crooked cops are just as dangerous as any of the street gangs, and the good cops are either bullied into silence or bound by misguided notions of brotherhood. It's a provocative thriller, and its timely resonance serves as a strong supplement to the non-stop action and pulse-pounding adventure.
While promoting Black and Blue, director Deon Taylor and actor Tyrese Gibson sat down with Screen Rant to discuss their work on the film, including the immense responsibility of making this type of thriller in today's political climate, one of the most dangerously divisive times since the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Tyrese, certainly, has plenty to say on the subject, and it's worth listening to his passionate appeals to the greater viewing public.
Black and Blue is in theaters now.
This movie, it's something that, one one hand, it's so amazing to see the first studio movie with a black female lead as a cop. And on the other hand, it's so embarrassing that it's taken this long for this movie to be made! It's 2019!
Tyrese Gibson: Say it. Say it.
What was it like to be in charge of something that is so important and, frankly, should have been made decades ago?
Deon Taylor: You know what, man? I don't know, man. I was just saying earlier, and I'm so happy you're bringing that to the light. I was just saying earlier that this movie is the product of what I'm going to call the perfect storm. Somebody had a screenplay, Peter Dowling, which was an absolutely incredible screenplay. But I don't think anyone was aware, until I read it, and pointed out, "Hey, this is the first time we're gonna see a a police officer that's African-American as the lead in a film." And I think everyone was kind of like, "What?" And I was like, "Yeah, and that's why we gotta do it right." And the casting from there, obviously, being blessed to be able to get somebody like Naomie Harris, what she does in the film is prolific. How she goes about playing the character, Alicia. The moments she's finding, the way she's actually interacting with the audience without even having words. And playing off of Tyrese, who basically represents the entire culture in the movie. I think it's a special movie, man. And when you match those performances with the lighting and the camerawork of Dante Spinotti.
Tyrese Gibson: And the directing of Deon...
Deon Taylor: I'm, like, in the back, man! You get something, to me, that a lot of people sit down and watch, and can't put their finger on why it's so incredible. And it's because all those moments are working. And all of those things are not written. And all of those moments that you're seeing in the movie are unconventional. A lot of times, critics have an amazing eye in terms of watching things that are conventional and formulating things like, "Oh, it has to have this, it has to have that." We live in a world right now, where all the rules have been broken. All of them. We're in a world right now, for a critic to write, when you call the police when something happens, and the police come kill you. Right? So now, what you have to do is you have to make a film that speaks directly to that audience. And when you make a film that speaks directly to that audience, they have to be unconventional. And they have to be hard to watch at times. And they have to be exhilarating. And they have to have all the energy around the chase scenes.
Tyrese Gibson: Check off every box.
Deon Taylor: And then, in the middle of the chase scenes, you've got to say something, and then quickly turn it down and then bring it back up, because this audience is used to watching stuff for 21 seconds, right? That doesn't always formulate with what people or critics are beginning to write. Like, "I wonder why you didn't... Why didn't you...?" No. This is for an audience of people that are being really messed up right now, man. And I am part of that audience, and Tyrese is part of that audience. So, making a movie like this is a huge slam dunk for someone like Sony. It's a bigger slam dunk for me, as an African-American filmmaker. And it's an even bigger slam dunk for someone like Tyrese and Naomi Harris to be able to participate in it and bring their amazing talent into a film like this.
Tyrese Gibson: One thing I will say is, and I'm gonna take a bit of a deep dive on this, because the viewers of your website, I really want them to make the decision, because this is your movie. This is your movie. This is a movie that puts you in the front seat, at the dinner table, to see and experience the black experience, the ghetto, the inner city, the vulnerabilities, like you've never seen before, before this movie. A couple of obvious things on this deep dive I want to point out. You would expect cameras being on every single cell phone, cameras, now, being in every car. Cameras being on every corner, to create a safer environment. But s*** has gotten worse! It's gotten more crazy. It's almost like people are trying to Trump each other, pun intended, to see what levels of dysfunction we can take things up to. And at any point that you get so used to your routine, so used to not being black, where you lose touch with the reality of what's actually going on because it's not at your door every day – to me, you're part of the problem. You should never get to a place where you say, "Ya know, it's really sad to see what they are dealing with." Because you've never had anyone in your family to deal with human and sex trafficking doesn't mean you should be out of touch and not care. Because nobody in your family has mental health issues, you should never not care. Because you don't have HIV/AIDS in your house or you don't have it, you should not be desensitized to what's going on. And being black in America is vulnerable. More vulnerable than it's ever been. Because, even with the cameras capturing the corruption, the excessive force, the abuse of power, the political coverups, the scams, the bulls***, it hasn't stopped it. It hasn't discouraged it. That's why this movie means as much as it means to me. And to us. And, in closing, when I think about Eric Garner, when I think about Tamir Rice, when I think about Trayvon Martin, when I think about Biggie Smalls, when I think about Nipsey Hussle... Biggie Smalls' mom will never be able to say "Happy Birthday" to her son, ever. And there's documentaries that clearly said that the police had something to do, allegedly, with killing Biggie Smalls. But there's never been a trial, there's never been anything, and the murder, to this day, is unsolved. This is why this movie matters as much as it does. When you show up for this movie, when you help us to make the statement that we want to make for this movie, being number one for three weeks and killing it all across the board, more movies that are on topic, that matter to us, will be made. Because Hollywoodbl will say, "Wow. Look how well this movie did. There must be an audience out there that wants to see more movies like this made." So what you're gonna write about this movie, what you're gonna write in the headlines, it's gonna create the traffic and the click-bait that we need in order for this thing to have the traction that we need. And so, as much as we made this movie for us, we're relying on you to help us to be successful. So thank you, in advance, for what you are doing.