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Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Red Tails
Interview with Kam
Williams
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
was born in the Bronx, New York on January 2, 1968, to
Shirley and Cuba, Sr., the lead singer of the R&B group
The Main Ingredient. But after his deadbeat dad
abandoned the family in 1974, Jr. and his siblings were
raised in L.A. by his struggling single-mom. He ended up
attending four different high schools, but was still
popular enough to be voted class president at three of
them.
Cuba’s showbiz
career began in 1984 as a breakdancer during the closing
ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. He subsequently
landed several bit roles on TV and in movies before
enjoying a meteoric rise after his spellbinding
performance as Tre in Boyz n the Hood.
In 1997, he won an
Academy Award for his memorable outing as Rod “Show me
the money!” Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, and was named one
of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People
Magazine the same year. He has also earned two NAACP
Image Awards (for Radio and Gifted Hands), a Screen
Actors Guild Award (for Jerry Maguire), and he even has
his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
A born-again
Christian since the age of 13, Cuba married his
childhood sweetheart, Sara Kapfer, whom he started
dating in high school. They have three kids, Spencer,
Mason and Piper. Here, he talks about his latest outing
as Major Emanuelle Stance in Red Tails, a World
War II epoch about the legendary Tuskegee Airmen.
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Kam Williams: Hi Cuba,
thanks for the interview.
Cuba Gooding: Anytime,
brother, how are you?
Kam Williams Just fine.
How’re things with you?
Cuba Gooding: I’m good. It’s
easy when you’re talking about a movie you’re passionate
about.
Kam Williams What made you
so passionate about Red Tails?
Cuba Gooding: Well, I had
first heard this story of the Tuskegee Airmen back in
1992 when I did that HBO movie. At the time, I was a
young man just finishing his education, and it
frustrated me that I hadn’t learned anything about these
African-American pilots who had escorted bombers during
World War II. It was one of those things where I was
going, “What the hell! Why didn’t I already know this?”
So, to tackle that subject-matter for HBO was monumental
in my life. Of course, I moved on in my career and did
other things, but when I heard that George Lucas was
going to make a blockbuster about the Tuskegee Airmen, I
was all over it. How often do we in Hollywood get an
opportunity to tell a black tale on a scale like this,
an action adventure? I knew it was going to be visually
stunning, so, I told him, “Hey, I have to be involved
even just to coach the actors or if l have to do Kraft
Services.” When I met with [director] Anthony Hemingway,
we just connected. It was the longest dinner, with tears
and everything. He recognized that the passion I had to
be a part of the movie was the same passion that these
men had to do their part for their country. George even
called and asked me to narrate his new documentary for
the History Channel called “Double Victory” which
chronicles both the Tuskegee Airmen’s triumphs in the
skies over Europe and the racism they had to deal with
back in the States. So, it’s been a fun ride, and I’ve
been blessed to be involved in something that not only
I’m passionate about but so is the man financing
it.
Kam Williams Larry Greenberg
points out that you’ve played pilots and military men
before, both real-life heroes like Carl Brashear in Men
of Honor and Dorie Miller in Pearl Harbor, and also
fictional characters in A Few Good Men, Judgement,
Outbreak and other movies. He asks: Is this something
you have a passion for?
Cuba Gooding: I guess so. I
used to say, “No, no, I just got lucky being cast.” But
the older I get, the more I ask myself, “Cube, what’s
your deal here?” Truthfully, I think it’s playing
real-life people that I’m attracted to. And the majority
of them have been military men. But there’s also James
Robert “Radio” Kennedy and some other guys I’ve played
who are real-life people. I think there’s something
about the heightened responsibility to tell the truth
that attracts me to these roles, especially when you can
have them on the set to help you do your job. And now
that I have two sons who are 15 and 17 who love watching
movies, you can count me in whenever I have an
opportunity to do a movie that gives a history lesson
about our contributions, especially to the military. I’m
in! I’m involved!
Kam Williams Editor/legist
Patricia Turnier asks: How would you describe your
character, Major Emanuelle Stance?
Cuba Gooding: Major
Emanuelle Stance is the patriarch on the base. He’s like
the football coach. He’s the person that gives the men
their encouragement before they go back out onto the
field.
Kam Williams Teresa Emerson
asks: What was it like to meet the surviving Tuskegee
Airmen? Did they help you prepare for your role as Major
Stance?
Cuba Gooding: Every day,
literally! They helped me to prepare to be a man. And
not only were they on the set every day, but one or two
have attended each of the screenings on the junket from
Dallas to Miami. And they’re in their 90s! It’s been a
magical and emotional experience for me every, single
time. So, it’s been great! [Chuckles]
Kam Williams Attorney
Bernadette Beekman says: You’ve played a lot of heroes.
Who is your own personal hero?
Cuba Gooding: My mom, to do
what she’s done to hold the family together. She raised
me, my brother, Omar, and my sister, with all of us
being homeless and having to live in the back of a car
for a period of time. So, yeah, my mom’s my hero. If I
had to pick one from the screen, it might be U.S. Navy
Master Chief Carl Brashear.
Kam Williams Film student
Jamaal Green asks: Cuba, is there any material or genre
out there that you have not yet covered in your career
that you would like to try?
Cuba Gooding: Absolutely! I
just heard about this magician named Black Herman who
was a contemporary of Houdini back in the early 20th
Century. Also, I’m an avid hockey fan and I’ve been
playing for about 17 years, and somebody recently told
me that the first organized hockey teams in Canada were
all black. Telling those stories would be cool.
Kam Williams Harriet Pakula
Teweles asks: How do you expect the picture to
contribute to the public's rethinking of the historic
role of the Tuskegee airmen?
Cuba Gooding: I hope the
picture makes an impact, and I know George Lucas is
doing everything he can to make sure that happens. And
then there’s the documentary Double Victory I mentioned
which is serving as a tangent to the movie. That will be
more of a history lesson than Red Tails which is an
action adventure tale on the scale of Avatar, with
16,000 special effects. It’s something that I think
people are going to be really impressed with, visually.
Kam Williams Harriet also
asks: What did you learn about yourself doing your role
in Red Tails?
Cuba Gooding: I learned that
not only am I a descendant of slaves, but that I am also
a descendant of royalty, that there are politicians from
the 1800s as well as Tuskegee Airmen in my lineage.
Kam Williams Rudy Lewis
asks: How inspirational can Red Tails be to those
who who are not being educated in the skills necessary
to compete nationally and globally with young men of
their generation? Will Red Tails be relevant to those 50
percent of young black men who drop out of high school
yearly?
Cuba Gooding: I hope so. If
some youngsters are inspired to go back and complete
their education based on the achievements of these
warriors, that would be God’s gift.
Kam Williams Patricia
Turnier also says: One of my favorite roles you played
in your career is Dr. Ben Carson. What did it mean to
you to represent this great physician who became the
first African-American medical doctor in history to
receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Cuba Gooding: [Shouts] You
see! I forgot about that one while we were just focusing
on military men. It’s my passion to play all these types
of characters that help educate how great it is to be
not just African-American, but American.
Kam Williams The Columbus
Short question: Are you happy?
Cuba Gooding: Yes, sir.
Every day.
Kam Williams The Tasha Smith
question: Are you ever afraid?
Cuba Gooding: Yes, from time
to time, but God has blessed me with the ability to be
more happy than fearful.
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Double Victory Trailer /
About Red Tails
George Lucas: Hollywood Didn't Want To Fund—'Red
Tails' Because Of Its Black Cast—10 January 2012—In an
appearance on The Daily Show last night, George Lucas
said that he had trouble getting funding for his new
movie, "Red Tails," because of its black cast. "This has
been held up for release since 1942 since it was shot,
I've been trying to get released ever since," Lucas told
Jon Stewart. "It's because it's an all-black movie.
There's no major white roles in it at all...I showed it
to all of them and they said no. We don't know how to
market a movie like this." "Red Tails," which stars Cuba
Gooding, Jr., and Terrence Howard, is based on
the Tuskegee Airmen, the group of pioneering black
pilots who fought in the United States' segregated armed
forces during World War II. The movie is directed by
Anthony Hemingway, the rare black director getting a
chance to direct a big-budget feature.—HuffingtonPost
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Red Tails Tuskegee Airmen Film Trailer
Directed by:
Anthony Hemingway.
Starring: Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan
Cranston, Brandon T. Jackson and Nate Parker.
Red Tails is
an upcoming film directed by Anthony Hemingway, from a
script by John Ridley and story by executive producer
George Lucas. It is based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a
group of African American combat pilots during World War
II, and is the first Lucasfilm Ltd. production since
Radioland Murders (1994) not to be associated with the
Indiana Jones or Star Wars franchises.
George Lucas began developing Red Tails around
1988. He compared it to Tucker: The Man and His Dream
as "a story too good to be true". Thomas Carter was his
original choice to direct. A number of writers worked on
the project until John Ridley was hired in 2007 to write
the final screenplay. Lucas held discussions with Samuel
L. Jackson regarding Jackson possibly directing and
acting in the film. Although Jackson praised the script,
he did not commit to either role.
Anthony Hemingway
was finally chosen to direct in 2008. In researching the
film, Lucasfilm invited some of the surviving Tuskegee
Airmen to Skywalker Ranch, where they were interviewed
about their experiences during World War II. Lucasfilm
was also given access to the original mission logbooks
used by some of the pilots.
Production began in March 2009.
High-definition Sony F35 cameras were used for principal
photography, which took place in the Czech Republic,
Italy, Croatia and England. While shooting in the Czech
Republic, the actors underwent a "boot camp" program,
during which they lived in similar conditions as the
actual Tuskegee Airmen. Editing began while the
production was in Prague. Avid editing systems were used
simultaneously in a Prague studio and at Lucasfilm. A
vehicle was fitted with a "technical center" so that the
production could quickly move between locations. In
March 2010, Lucas took over direction of reshoots, as
Hemingway was busy working on episodes of the HBO series
Treme. Hemingway will have final approval over
the footage.—YouTube
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Airmen who
fought to fight—Two stars and a producer talk about "Red
Tails," the story of the black Tuskegee pilots who
overcame racism in World War II.—9 August 2011—Tirdad
Derakhshani—'It's Top Gun with black pilots."So Terrence
Howard describes with a punchy tagline his film, Red
Tails, a WWII actioner about the famed Tuskegee Airmen,
the first group of African American fighter pilots in
the U.S. armed forces. . . . Howard said the film allows
white and black viewers alike to see "what happens when
a people are oppressed and they stand apart and instead
of focusing on what they lack, they do something about
it." Coproducer Johnson, who studied law at Howard
University and practiced for a short time as an Army
lawyer, said the Airmen's triumph did not end in
1945."Over my years of research, I met a lot of the
Tuskegee Airmen," he said, "and they went on to become
leaders and captains of industry." Red Tails is not a
history lesson; it is, in the end, entertainment,
Johnson said. If you want the history, he added, the
production team also will release Double Victories, a
new two-hour documentary about the Airmen narrated by
Gooding. Are the filmmakers worried that Red Tails,
which will be marketed as an action blockbuster for a
general audience, might be perceived as a film for a
black audience and thus lose out at the box office?—Philly.com
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‘Red Tails,’
Lucas’s Tuskegee Airmen Movie, Lands a Release Date—Dave
Itzkoff—29 July 2011—It was a long time ago—1994, to be
precise—when
George Lucas produced his last film that was not
connected to his Indiana Jones or Star Wars
fantasy franchises. Now his long-in-the-works film about
the fighting men of a very different war finally has a
release date: on Friday, Lucasfilm said that Red Tails,
a film about the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black pilot
group that fought in World War II, would be released on
Jan. 20. The film is directed by Anthony Hemingway, who
has directed for television series including Treme, True
Blood and CSI: NY, and its ensemble cast features Cuba
Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard and Bryan Cranston, as well
as Tristan Wilds (of The Wire and 90210),
Cliff Smith (better known as the rapper Method Man), Ne-Yo
and Elijah Kelley.
Mr. Lucas, the
executive producer of Red Tails, said in a
statement: “I’ve wanted to do this film for a great many
years. So it is especially gratifying to see it all come
together.” He added: “The Tuskegee Airmen were such
superb pilots that it was essential for us to create
visual effects that would live up to their heroism and
put audiences in the cockpit with them. They were only
in their early 20s when they performed these amazing
feats. They became the best of the best—the top guns.”—artsbeat
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The problem with all-star African
American Casts...
By Tyler Perry
Unfortunately, movies starring an
all African American cast are on the verge of becoming extinct. THAT’S
RIGHT, EXTINCT! Ask any executive at a Hollywood Studio why, and most of
them will tell you one of two things. The first thing they’ll say is
that DVD sales have become very soft, so it’s hard for a movie with an
all black cast to break-even. Secondly they’ll say, most movies are now
dependent on foreign sales to be successful and most “black” movies
don’t sell well in foreign markets. So what that means is you will begin
to see less and less films that star an all black cast. Isn’t that sad
in a 2012 America? Somewhere along the way we still haven’t realized
that we are more alike then not.
I must tell you that I have been
very fortunate to work with a studio that sees the value in my type of
storytelling and filmmaking. As well as having you, an audience of all
races of people, who have stood by me arm and arm. It has helped me
navigate through some pretty rough waters.
I thought that as black people in
Hollywood, this is just our reality, but I quickly realized that this is
not racism. What made me realize this is I had a conversation with Mr.
Star Wars himself, George Lucas, and he was telling me that he was
having the same problem with Red Tails. I was blown away! Red Tails is
an important story about, not just black history, but American history
about the Tuskegee Airmen. It has an all-star African American cast,
including Cuba Gooding, Jr
and Terrence
Howard ,
which opens this Friday. He went on to say that he brought the movie
idea of Red Tails to several studios and no one wanted to make
this film. . . .
AND THIS IS GEORGE LUCAS! Not to be deterred, he
put up his own money, shot the movie then took it back to those same
studios, and they wanted nothing to do with it. One of them even refused
to see the film, citing the above mentioned problems. So George decided
to take a huge risk by entirely funding the movie and releasing it
himself. What a guy! For him to believe so strongly in this story is
amazing. I think we should pull together and get behind this movie. I
really do! Not just African Americans, but all of us. I have seen the
movie and screened it here in Atlanta. I loved it and I think you will
too. The Tuskegee Airmen, who were at the screening, were so happy that
somebody is telling a small part of their story.
It opens this Friday. Please take
your kids, you will enjoy it and so will they. There is a lot of action
and adventure and also a great history lesson to be learned. George, I
just want to say, thank you for having the courage to do this
Source:
TylerPerry
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The Tuskegee Airmen
John Lithgow (Actor),
Cuba Jr. Gooding
This true story of the
black flyers who broke the color barrier in the U.S. Air
Force during World War II is a well-intentioned film
highlighted by an excellent cast. Proud, solemn, Iowa-born
Laurence Fishburne and city-kid hipster Cuba Gooding Jr. are
among the hopefuls who meet en route to Tuskegee Air Force
Base, where they are among the recruits for an
"experimental" program to "prove" the abilities of the black
man in the U.S. armed services. Fighting prejudice from
racist officers and government officials and held to a
consistently higher level of performance than their white
counterparts, these men prove themselves in training and in
combat, many of them dying for their country in the process.
Andre Braugher costars as a West Point graduate who takes
charge of the unit in Africa and in Italy (where it's
christened the 332nd). The film is rousing, if slow starting
and episodic, but it's periodically grounded by a host of
war movie clichés, notably the calculated demise of
practically every trainee introduced in the opening scenes
(ironic given the 332nd's real-life combat record--high
casualties for the enemy, low casualties among themselves,
and no losses among the bombers they escorted). Ultimately
the Emmy-nominated performances by moral backbone Fishburne
and the dedicated Braugher and the energy and cocky
confidence of Gooding give their battles both on and off the
battlefield the sweet taste of victory.—Sean
Axmaker |
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Oscar nominations 2012: full list
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Juano Hernández (July 19, 1896 – July 17, 1970) was a Puerto Rican stage and film actor of African descent who was a pioneer in the African-American film industry. He made his debut in an Oscar Micheaux film, The Girl from Chicago which was directed at black audiences. Hernández also performed in a serious of dramatic roles in mainstream Hollywood movies. His participation in the film "Intruder in the Dust" earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for "New Star of the Year." . . . In 1949, he acted in his first mainstream film, based on William Faulkner's novel, Intruder in the Dust, in which he played the role of "Lucas Beauchamp", a poor Southern sharecropper unjustly accused of murder. The film earned him a Golden Globe nomination for "New Star of the Year." The film was listed as one of the ten best of the year by the New York Times. Faulkner said of the film: "I'm not much of a moviegoer, but I did see that one. I thought it was a fine job. That Juano Hernandez is a fine actor—and man, too." Film historian Donald Bogle said that
Intruder in the Dust broke new ground in the cinematic portrayal of blacks, and Hernandez's "performance and extraordinary presence still rank above that of almost any other black actor to appear in an American movie."—Wikipedia |
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.— WashingtonPost
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ChickenBones Store
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update 17 January 2012
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