Maori chats with award-winning actor and multimedia artist Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall, Till, Station Eleven). The two discuss Danielle’s experience growing up in Atlanta, her mother’s determination to give her access to the arts, and how the experiences of Black women’s labor have influenced her art and practice. Danielle also shares why theater is her favorite medium and what it’s been like to take on iconic roles on screen— including in Till and the upcoming film adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.
Subscribe to Many Lumens wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram and Twitter @manylumens for the latest.
All episode transcripts and show notes are available at manylumens.com.
Many Lumens is brought to you by the Open Society Foundations.
Maori chats with award-winning actor and multimedia artist Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall, Till, Station Eleven). The two discuss Danielle’s experience growing up in Atlanta, her mother’s determination to give her access to the arts, and how the experiences of Black women’s labor have influenced her art and practice. Danielle also shares why theater is her favorite medium and what it’s been like to take on iconic roles on screen— including in Till and the upcoming film adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.
Subscribe to Many Lumens wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram and Twitter @manylumens for the latest.
All episode transcripts and show notes are available at manylumens.com.
Many Lumens is brought to you by the Open Society Foundations.
[00:00:00] Maori Karmael Holmes: As part of their enduring commitment to justice, equity, and expression, the Open Society Foundations are proud to sponsor Many Lumens. You're listening to Many Lumens, where we talk about and find meaning in the intersections of art, social change, and popular culture. I'm your host, Maori Karmael Holmes.
In this episode, I'm delighted to speak with a talented actor and artist, Danielle Deadwyler. Danielle was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. A natural-born performer and creative, she was deeply influenced by Black southern creativity, expression, and culture. After completing two graduate degrees, she pursued acting full-time. Danielle has appeared in countless independent films and theatrical productions, including being in a regional production of For Colored Girls, directed by Jasmine Guy; Station Eleven on HBO Max; and From Scratch, which streams on Netflix. In 2023, she starred as Mamie Till-Mobley in the award-winning film, Till, directed by Chinonye Chukwu, a performance which garnered her several nominations for Best Actress. I was excited to speak with Danielle, not only due to her powerhouse performances, but because of her immense love and care for the character she portrays. Danielle joined our conversation from her home when I asked her about her early childhood growing up in Southwest Atlanta. And now for my conversation with Danielle Deadwyler.
[00:01:35] Maori Karmael Holmes: Thank you for joining us, Danielle, welcome to Many Lumens.
[00:01:39] Danielle Deadwyler:Thank you for having me. So happy to be here.
[00:01:42] Maori Karmael Holmes: I want to ask you, how would you describe your family life growing up? I know that you were raised in Southwest Atlanta, and I'm just curious, what did your family do? What kind of lessons did they instill in you?
[00:01:57] Danielle Deadwyler: My mother worked in legal administration for over 25 years, and my father worked at CSX, the railroad company, for 30 years. But my mother's parents were laborers. They were workers. They worked in a chicken factory for years, like 30 plus years as well. Thinking about a history of hard work, consistent, diligent, rigorous labor for family, which means labor for the community, and being giving and loving in that way. And understanding that art is a part of life. Not having that as language, it is intrinsically woven in your daily. My grandma is sewed clothes, like a lot of Black families you didn't have no choice, but that's where she put her creative spark into life. My grandfather and grandmother had a garden on their land, that's a creative endeavor. I see creativity in how to live in the survivability that we have on the day-to-day. But my mom had a best friend, Velma Ludaway, who was a visual artist. She was a painter. And she's the first professional artist that I saw in an intimate manner, because we would be at her house. My brother and her brother were really tight friends. She had a painting studio in the basement of her house. She would always exhibit at the National Black Arts Festival, and that's where I saw art being practiced on a certain scale. And my mother was intent on making sure her children had access to art in a certain kind of way.
[00:03:51] Maori Karmael Holmes: Why was that?
[00:03:52] Danielle Deadwyler: I think she wanted to do it, and I think her parents didn't necessarily know how to support that for her in her desire. In her move from Athens, Georgia, which is where my parents are from and where my grandparents lived, she came to Atlanta and knew that was what she wanted for her children. She wanted for them to have a creative expression.
[00:04:15] Maori Karmael Holmes: And so, when did you think about becoming an artist yourself, or did you not think about it? Was it just like you were in it and you were doing it, and you didn't even consider it?
[00:02:27] Danielle Deadwyler: See, and that's the point, because it's just always been there. I think we started dancing with Marlene Rounds at four. At four or five. And dance has always just been there. And so theater has always just been there, because it was a natural smooth segue into each and every other discipline. And then when I realized, because even in college I didn't major in theater or art in any way. I did plays, less so, but I still did them in college and in grad school. And then after grad, I taught for two years and I was like, "Oh, something's missing." It was like, "I don't like this void." And that's when I realized, okay, I should be doing this. And so I auditioned for For Colored Girls, which was Jasmine Guy's directorial debut here for theater, and that's when the ball just rolled. It was like, I can't not do this on a consistent basis. It has to be a part of my daily life.
[00:05:32] Maori Karmael Holmes: I would love to back up just a little bit. You've talked about starting with dance, but when did you know that you wanted to take up acting? Was it a church play or community theater? How were you introduced to acting?
[00:05:48] Danielle Deadwyler: See, because that's why I located in total dance theater, because it didn't feel like dance. It just felt an amalgamation of all of the mediums together. This is the scene, it happens to have movement in it, and it happens to have movement in it, and it happens to have Williams spitting his Nikki Giovanni play, and it happens to have all this other dynamic stuff, movement at the same time. And so I never felt like I wasn't an actor, even though a lot of people would be like, "I thought you were just a dancer.” But at certain times, no, no, no. Dancers aren't just dancers, there's a communication that's happening. There's a language that's flowing. It might not have words, it's asemic, it's something else. And so I've always felt like an actor, it just started to come out differently with language. Atlanta Street Theater, that's when it really... Oh, this is acting. This is, you're doing traditional theater games and you're doing scene composition in a certain way. You're using the tongue and the body to express in a specific manner. And so Atlanta Street Theater is when I really had a bit more rigor in learning the principles of theater.
[00:07:12] Maori Karmael Holmes: You made a decision to major in history as an undergraduate, which I did as well. And I'm curious-
[00:07:18] Danielle Deadwyler: What were we thinking?
[00:07:20] Maori Karmael Holmes: I'm curious. I know I did, but I'm curious why you chose that major.
[00:07:26] Danielle Deadwyler: I had it in my mind I was going to go and get a doctorate and be a collegiate professor. My sister was a history sociology major. I wasn't digging too tough on the sociology portion of her degree, but I thought history made sense for me because, I don't know, I was just always attracted to bridging the gap. And having had this childhood that was reared in all of these civil rights organizations, these were places where things were happening and history was being spoken of, but it was just sometimes in one ear out the other of a kid. But it stuck, and I need to stay stuck to it and I need to analyze it with a new lens. So that's why history. But also, not thinking at the time that art was going to enable me to live a certain way quite yet, taking it for granted maybe. I didn't think that art was the job that I could employ quite yet. I thought that, oh, you go get your doctorate. This is security. Like Black folk, get you a good government job. No. But then I was also applying for grants and stuff at the time and thinking, oh, I should synthesize this academic pursuit with art. So bridging the educational and the artistic together is a good thing I could do. Not knowing that you can do that in all kinds of ways, it doesn't have to just be through an academic institution. Yeah.
[00:09:05] Maori Karmael Holmes: What made you decide to apply and attend Spelman?
[00:09:13] Danielle Deadwyler: Here's what happened. I was going to Morehouse every year from eighth grade to 12th grade, a part of this program called the Morehouse Pipeline Program. It was centered around science and math. That's not my shtick, but it was wonderful to do as a thing continuously every summer. And, we happen to have gotten paid, we got these lovely stipends. You get to hang out with friends every summer, cool. I went to visit some schools in the north in New York, because my sister went to Columbia. I want to go to the north too. And then I said, "Ooh, I don't know if I don't want to be around us the whole time." I was like, I think I want a more concentrated cultural experience. Additionally, let's make a good financial choice for mom and dad, and I'm going to stay home. And so Morehouse Pipeline Program created an opportunity for me to have a scholarship to go to Spelman, and it was the best thing I could have ever done. It was the best choice. Yeah.
[00:10:22] Maori Karmael Holmes: That's amazing. I know that you went on to earn an MA in American Studies at Columbia, so you did follow your sister.
[00:10:29] Danielle Deadwyler: I did.
[00:10:30] Maori Karmael Holmes: And you got to study with the brilliant Robin D. G. Kelley. And I was just curious, what did you think would be next after the master's program? Were you still on the PhD track? Or, what were you thinking when you entered that program?
[00:10:42] Danielle Deadwyler: I did. I was. I was thinking I was going to go get a doctorate. I applied to Emory, to the Women's Studies. I think I applied to the ILA program [Institute of the Liberal Arts], which is now defunct––
[00:10:52] Maori Karmael Holmes: ––Oh yeah, I remember that program.
[00:10:54] Danielle Deadwyler: ... Women’s Department. Yeah…
[00:11:02] Maori Karmael Holmes: It seemed like such a dream.
[00:11:03] Danielle Deadwyler: It seemed like such a dream.
[00:11:04] Maori Karmael Holmes: It did.
[00:11:04] Danielle Deadwyler: And I was a finalist, and I was working for the... I had a governor's internship, and so I was a finalist and I went and did the little two days that they have where people come and you talk to different professors and blah, blah, blah. That was my only go-to, right? I was one of those, it's this one or nothing. And it became a nothing, because they didn't accept me. And I was in the bathroom at the internship crying in the bathroom, "What am I going to do now?" And that was the beginning of leading me in a direction to do what I do today. That led me from that internship, a woman who worked there told me about the elementary school that I ended up working at. And that was a beautiful experience, because children are phenomenal. But I realized I needed something a little bit more dynamic, and was finding the need to infuse art in everything that I do because we had dual teacher classrooms. And just wanted something more energetic, and that's what led me to that audition.
[00:12:16] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah. I was curious, you mentioned that you auditioned for Jasmine Guy's directorial debut For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which is this iconic play. And I was wondering-
[00:12:33] Danielle Deadwyler: Icon!
[00:12:34] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah. What was that production like, and what did you learn from working with Jasmine Guy?
[00:12:42] Danielle Deadwyler: That's my OG. I learned from her to this day. I wouldn't have been able to move through any of what the experience of the last year has been, the last 3, 4, 5 years, quite frankly, of becoming a part of certain productions and being thrusted into a greater purview of the national artistic scope without her. I had done For Colored Girls a couple of times before, but to come to this experience was different. I think I played Lady in Red before, and maybe some blends of some colors from high school, because I did Lady in Red in high school. And our director, Ms. Milton, she had chopped it up, because you can't give them the whole thing in high school. And then at Spelman we had mixed it up because so many people want to be a part of the thing, so you only get so much. And then here was an experience with Jasmine where it was the amount of women who were in the play on the stage. But to have everybody being a certain track or a certain experience, you are Lady in Green. You are a Lady in Yellow. I was Lady in Yellow. I was able to really clearly see the story of each woman, and really identify with yellow because I felt so fresh and so young, and was excited in a certain way. I came in completely off book, and just ready and energized for this experience. Jasmine, to this day, teaches me how to be a professional. She teaches me how to be a woman, how to be a woman of rigor and discipline and grace and integrity. It's truly old school knowledge, but she's the person who has enabled me to feel comfortable moving through these spaces, and to take charge of myself. And letting me know I belong wherever I am.
[00:14:51] Maori Karmael Holmes:I think there's something about our generation and we're this bridge. I'm born in '78, I know you're born in '82, but they call it, it's Xennial, between Gen X, between Millennials. And one of the common things is the amount of student loan debt that we carry. But I think that's also-
[00:15:10] Danielle Deadwyler: Good Lord.
[00:15:11] Maori Karmael Holmes: ... related to a pursuit of degrees. I don't know a more heavily degreed group of people as a generation.
[00:15:21] Danielle Deadwyler: Particularly Black women.
[00:15:22] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah, particularly Black women. And I have friends who have two MFAs, and people who have a JD and a PhD. You know what I mean? It's really crazy. But I also think it was also an amazing opportunity to pursue those degrees. But I was curious, because I have a master's and a half, I pursued a second one and didn't finish it. But I know from being in Hollywood circles, sometimes formal education is really looked down upon, particularly graduate education. And I was curious what your experience has been like if the additional schooling helped you navigate your career in certain ways. Did it give you confidence that this wasn't the only pursuit for you? Or just, what has your experience been like with all your degrees?
[00:16:10] Danielle Deadwyler: Yeah, we just like student loans. I just think we love––
[00:16:12] Maori Karmael Holmes: ––We love Sallie Mae!
[00:16:14] Danielle Deadwyler: …"How much you got? I got 100,000. How much you got?" Yeah. To me, I think we were trying to go by the book. I think that we're the last vestiges of folks who were like, okay, cool. This is what you say it means to thrive and to be productive in society. I got that. I got that degree too. And my silly butt but went off and got an MFA after the master's in American Studies too. Because they said, "Oh, you need to have a certain amount of credit hours in this discipline in order to teach on this level." So I was trying to do it right. But then trying to do it right became deeply frustrating and unfulfilling. And so it has been helpful in being able to understand that I am capable of more than just this one thing, that sometimes I need to float over here if I'm tired over here. And also, I just need to have two things at the same time. That's where it became imperative for me to have a sense of power and control over the art that I was producing. And so that's why I started flowing into performance art and flowing into experimental work, and doing things on my own so that I wasn't thinking that my life and career was beholden to gatekeepers and people deciding on whether or not I made sense in a project or not. At the end of the day, folks don't really know whether or not I have a degree. They really started learning in these last several months pushing Till, but I don't think they're interested in having an academic conversation.
[00:17:53] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah, no. They're not. It never comes up. I first came to know about you as an artist from your work with Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Be Alarmed, which we-
[00:18:07] Danielle Deadwyler: That's my dawg.
[00:18:09] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah. I met Tiona when she moved to Philly, and we had Be Alarmed as a part of the early BlackStar. And I know that you all collaborated in other capacities, but I was curious, how did you two meet?
[00:18:22] Danielle Deadwyler: We met at the AU. Tiona was at Clark and I was at Spelman, just like the Outkast song. We had a mutual friend, my dear friend Nicole, who I seen that first day at Spelman. Made Spelman home. We met through her, because they both lived in South Carolina together. And some things are just divine, and Tiona and I have just been friends since then. My friend Nicole had moved to DC, and Tiona and I were both living here in Atlanta still, and we still stayed connected. And we stayed connected even when Tiona decided to move to Philly, because in Philly when she moved there in the early outset of her career, that's where Be Alarmed was filmed. And we still trucking, doing all kinds of fun stuff. I just think that there's a spiritual connection to certain people that come in your life. You don't always know why when you first meet them, but boy, oh boy, do they reveal themselves.
[00:19:21] Maori Karmael Holmes: I realized that Tiona also served as a mentor for you in an exhibition you did with the CUE Art Foundation, and you were starting to talk about moving into performance art and experimenting with form. And so I was just curious, can you talk about that experience or other experiences in the visual arts space?
[00:19:40] Danielle Deadwyler: That work came from an exhibition I had here called, Will to Adorn at MINT. I think there was several years of just playing and figuring it out, moving through different things, knowing that I can't sacrifice my body the same way. And so this is steering back to this understanding that my family, our lineage, Black people's lineage has a practice of hard labor. You're not going to not see Black people work. That's what we do. But me beginning to understand that I need to do something different with my body or I will degrade it, and it will be completely exhausted. And by the time I'm 50, what will it be capable of doing? I was doing performance art real hard core, in the streets for a few performances. And specifically, interrogating what does it mean to labor as a Black woman in a domestic capacity, in a sexual performative capacity? What does it mean to be valued and to be devalued? What does it mean to be in the light, to be in the dark? And for these valuations to be oscillating, when you put them side by side and there being a blurring. And so I was really digging into that, utilizing my body literally and wanting to go further. And so I moved into portraiture and looking at myself, and the ramifications of these years. And looking at my peers in an intergenerational capacity, my mother, my grandmother. My artistic peers, one being Angela Davis Johnson. And a student who actually I taught when she was in fourth and fifth grade. And I created a documentary, experimental doc exploring these intergenerational experiences of Black women laboring. And then combining that with these portraits and other multimedia to explore what it means to be laboring in this capacity.And then combining history, and thinking about the washer women's strike in 1881, which was the year Spelman was developed in Atlanta. But there were other washer women's strikes throughout the South prior to then, but I concentrated on this Atlanta based one. So everything was fussing at this juncture. I think this was around 2019, and several years before then. It's just combining all of that work and that thinking about what labor is and how it happens in our lives, and how it happens historically. And then looking at myself and what was happening, and trying to process the flaw that was occurring. And that was the impetus for Object-Subject: Flaw is the Only Recourse, which was at CUE. And the way Tiona talked to me about that work, which moved through a African diasporic spiritual understanding of the practice. It was a film called CHOR(E)S or “Chorus”, depending on how you look at it. And then all of the portraits and the way she presented them was where it enabled you to see all of those women, and the experience of being flawed. And then being the one who alchemizes that flaw into something hopeful, into something beyond the marks that are left from having had done whatever the labor was.
[00:23:21] Maori Karmael Holmes: I was reading your artist statement, and know how important the legacy of Black women is to you and to your practice. And I was wondering if there are some Black women... You've named some, Jasmine Guy and Terry and Dawn and Tiona. But are there other Black women that you lean upon as guides, or that you'd like to lift up as having an impact on your career?
[00:23:46] Danielle Deadwyler: Goodness, you are going to ask this, and then two hours later I'm "I should have said this and this and this." It's very much the people who were integral in formative years. I did like Brenda Davenport at SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference]. I think those people who have been stick -to-a-tiv. Let's see, Donna Bisco, that's my dawg. These are Black women of a certain generation who have just poured into me, and are consistent in their field. Folks whose name you may not know, but they laid the foundation. I think of her, I think of Crystal Fox. People know Crystal Fox for The Haves and the Have Nots. It's just folks who are down for the work, and the joy of it. They know how to balance. I think I'm trying to figure out balance still. I'm getting better at it, but people who understand balance have been Donna and Crystal who understand, I have a family and I have a certain joy, and ain't going to tell me nothing because I'm going to murder you on this stage or this scene. Whatever it is, wherever it is, I'm going to do that. Yeah, yeah. Love all this.
[00:25:08] Maori Karmael Holmes: Speaking of family, I know that you have a 13-year-old son, Ezra. And I was curious, a couple of things. One, I wanted to know if he was an artist?
[00:25:20] Danielle Deadwyler: He is, he's learning piano. He's been in plays and he's been in a film with me. He is playing basketball now, I think that has an artistry to it. But where he's going to land officially or more rigorously, I don't know. I don't know. I think he's in this phase of figuring it out, of trying all the things. I think 13 is a time where you're starting to say, "Oh, this makes more sense to me. This feels good in my body, more so than these other things." I think he's there. If I go according to what I have said earlier, then surely he is an artist. It's just, what's going to stick more so than the other.
[00:26:06] Maori Karmael Holmes: I was also curious, a lot of my friends who are parents and artists are some of the most productive people that I know. And not the other way around, which is what I feel like is the lore. But my experience has been that they're actually quite productive because they're so focused and intentional about their time. And I was just curious for you, even for some of my friends, it helped them really develop discipline in ways that they hadn't before they had kids. And I was just curious if that was your experience.
[00:26:34] Danielle Deadwyler: Oh, for sure, for sure. He needs a certain amount of time. I need a certain amount of time. The work requires a certain amount of time. If you don't get your act together, somebody's going to be pissed, and none of them want to be pissed. Yeah. I think I've gotten better at it in the last few years. And the acting portion calls for different things, it is changes based on the project, but that also makes me more intentional about what projects I seek to be participative in. It makes me more intentional about how I want to roll out anything that I personally do. And I want to be intentional about being present for everything that he seeks to make and be a part of. It's definitely concentrate the work and concentrate it the way that I... Like I was saying, the exhaustion of the body from earlier stuff just said, you have to find another way. There's got to be another way. And so I think it's more thinking, more processing, more analyzing of anything that I seek to make, so that when it does come time to make it's very concentrated time of output. So that then I can have more concentrated time of self-rehabilitation or ease, discipline. It's definitely forged discipline in my life.
[00:28:07 ] Maori Karmael Holmes: We talked about acting, making conceptual art, dance, writing. I know that you direct film as well. But is there a single medium that's truly your favorite?
[00:28:18] Danielle Deadwyler: I always come back to the stage, I'll say that. Because at the end of the day it doesn't need anything, all it needed is you. Or multiple yous, multiple people, multiple bodies to create something. And all of the mediums can exist through that body. You may not have a camera, but you can do something that makes it feel like a camera. You don't have to have a choreographer. The body has everything that you need, and the stage is just an empty space. I love a black box, that's all that you need. That's it.
[00:29:03] Maori Karmael Holmes: I love that.
[00:29:06] Danielle Deadwyler: Yeah. There's something to be created in the dark. People love to say love and light and all those kinds of things. And the light is valuable, but much more production happens in the dark than in the light. That's just a universe thing.
[00:29:23] Maori Karmael Holmes: Well, it's half-and-half, right? You don't get one without the other.
[00:29:27] Danielle Deadwyler: No, you don't. You don't. In doing research for some future work, dark matter is more prevalent in the universe than planets or stars, or any of that stuff. It's all dark. All the production happens there.
[00:29:47] Maori Karmael Holmes: I want to move into talking more specifically about film and television, because that is where I think a lot of people are going to know you from, particularly as of late. And so I was wondering, how long after appearing in the production of For Colored Girls was it before you returned to actively pursuing film and television work? You've done Being Mary Jane, and as you mentioned, The Haves and the Have Nots, and The Watchman, Station Eleven. When did this phase begin?
[00:30:17] Danielle Deadwyler: Oh, that's a time. I think 2008 is around the time. 2007, 2008 is around the time For Color Girls. And that's when TV is starting to rev in Atlanta. And I was doing more indie stuff. And Being Mary Jane didn't happen until like 2012, which then Station Eleven didn't happen until the top of 2020. So that's all time. We did Watchmen in 2019 too. That's about seven years. Seven years of lots indie film work, shorts, of indie features, with a bunch of weird shit at the end of the day. Which I love. But seven years of just floating and finding community, and being truly honed in the indie space more so than the commercial space. People always want to be on the big budgets, but you get to practice, you get to actually practice on an indie film set. Which is big.
[00:31:32] Maori Karmael Holmes: How have you gone about selecting roles? What has been your process for that?
[00:31:37] Danielle Deadwyler: I'm putting my hands up to the sky and saying, "The spirit". You know…It is divine and intuitive to a certain degree. I think I've been interested in a certain kind of... Or attracted to a certain kind of woman, certain kind of being. And so they just naturally come to me in this way. I think I've had to have a more conscious yes, yes, no, no, in the last year. Because it's not like before when you're auditioning for everything. It's either, you going to take this job and make this money, or not. It's less, you've got this plethora of stuff available to you. It didn't happen until about now to where people are just like, "Oh, I like what you do. I've seen what you do. Here's an offer." For the most of my life I've had to... For Till I had to audition, multiple auditions. And plenty of other things where you might go through a self-tape, a callback, an in-person, another in-person. It's like, when people talk about that, it's literally that might be over the course of a few weeks or a few months. And it's not just a role just given to you. Yeah, I've just now gotten to the space of saying, "I am interested in this." Yes, I'll keep conversing with an artist or a director or a writer or whatever about it. But now I know I want to see dynamic characters. I want to see flawed people. I want to see Black women or Black people, beings in all kinds of spaces. And what kind of interior journey is this person going through?
[00:33:30] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah. Is there a dream role or project that you feel comfortable sharing that you just always wanted to play?
[00:33:37] Danielle Deadwyler: Not really. I get a feeling when I see something for the first time that makes sense to me, that I definitely am sparked to do. But I don't think that nothing's riding my back about, oh, I got to do this. I got to do this. When I see it, I know it. I know, that's how I feel.
[00:33:58] Maori Karmael Holmes: This past year you were part of two major projects, From Scratch and Till, of course. Both showing an incredible range. And I want to say, I don't know if you remember, but I saw you at the London premiere and I was-
[00:34:14] Danielle Deadwyler: Yes, I remember.
[00:34:15] Maori Karmael Holmes: I was dumbfounded. You embodied Mamie with such grace and so much grounding. And that wailing room in the courtroom, I'm going to live with that for the rest of my life. And if it was up to me, you would've won all of the awards. And that's not a question, I just really wanted to say that because you really gave us a gift. I think that was incredibly... It's really difficult to play historical figures, because they're imbued with so much, and they mean so much to people. And I don't know what you did to prepare, but I just really appreciate you, and you deserve all the flowers. But I wanted to ask you, what made you say yes to this film? Had you seen Chinonye, who's also a Taurus, had you seen her previous work?
[00:35:06] Danielle Deadwyler: I didn't see it until after.
[00:35:08] Maori Karmael Holmes: Okay.
[00:35:08] Danielle Deadwyler: Until I said yes.
[00:35:09] Maori Karmael Holmes: Okay.
[00:35:11] Danielle Deadwyler: And I have to trust my director, I think that's also a part of choice making. I don't look at playbacks, I don't do that. It's all about being invested in what is being created. I'm in the environment, I'm not in the frame. Or my work is in the environment, my director's work is the frame. I just trusted who she was. I trusted all of the conversations that we had. We were very open from the beginning about what it meant to take this on, about what it meant to... And speaking about Black women's labor and speaking about Black women's trauma. And I had known about this all my life in the same way that she had known about this, and knew that we didn't know as much as we thought we knew when we started to dig. And feeling that as a great privilege and a great need to serve this out in this capacity, with her particular brilliant lens on how to handle it. She was intent from the beginning to not show the violence. She was intent on just having that real view, that refined, crafted “oof” for it that it deserved. And so that's why I stepped into it.
[00:36:26] Maori Karmael Holmes: How did you prepare for the role? What research did you do? And how did you get into not only showing the beauty that was in her life and the love that was in her life, but of course managing the grief and terror that was required? How did you prepare?
[00:36:44] Danielle Deadwyler: I called my therapist. I said, "I'm about to do some stuff that's difficult. Can you be on call?" Chinonye had a lot of research, specifically visual footage, and of course Mamie's memoir. And then just Robin had a lot of knowledge about Southern politics and the Southern environment, the resistance, Black rebellion at the time in the South that had details about what it meant to be in Mississippi. What were Black resistance movements looking like? Who were gun totting? Who were like Dr. Howard, right? And then poetry. There's just a plethora of just all kinds of work dedicated to Emmett, and dedicated to Mamie too. And so I just compiled all of those things together to come to an understanding of who she was, and to prepare myself to move through in that way. I was coming home to my son every night, you have to balance. It's not throw away art. It's not just, oh, I'm doing something wild and crazy. No, no, no. This is rich. Care for it in a balanced capacity. Be able to walk into it feverishly and with love, and step away so that you can recover. Yeah.
[00:38:08] Maori Karmael Holmes: I was told that you recently wrapped the action thriller film Carry On.
[00:38:13] Danielle Deadwyler: Oh, yeah.
[00:38:14] Maori Karmael Holmes: Is this new territory for you, and can you give us a sneak peek into the character that you're playing?
[00:38:20] Danielle Deadwyler: Shit is wild. Okay? The Harder They Fall is a Western, but it had some action in it. I had to learn how to ride horses. I had to learn how to wield a gun. This is a little different when you get into the notion of machinery and stuff. That's all I'm going to delve you into, just a little hint. Because I don't want to spoil nothing. But it was a little different. It was a little new. And still it's fun. Actually, just has a different vibe to it, and has a technical capacity because of care and protection of everybody in the midst of doing some hardcore stunts. Or just bigger budgets at the end of the day. Like damn, it's a plane right there and I'm next to it. But it's going to be fun. And it's set in an airport, and shenanigans occur.
[00:39:17] Maori Karmael Holmes: Enough said. I also read that you're starring in a new film adaptation of August Wilson's, The Piano Lesson, another iconic play. This one is starring Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington, directed by Malcolm Washington. I'm assuming you're playing Bernice.
[00:39:35] Danielle Deadwyler: You can assume that.
[00:39:38] Maori Karmael Holmes: I was curious, how does it feel to step into such big shoes, considering the folks who've been in this play on Broadway and the previous adaptation? How are you feeling about that? Are you ready?
[00:39:52] Danielle Deadwyler: I never put weight on stuff, because the work doesn't put weight on. The characters don't put weight on what that means externally. I'm just invested in the interior world. And I think that everybody else, when I go into something, that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be invested in this world. You're supposed to tell this story the way you're supposed to tell this story. I think I've been privileged in not being able caught up in those things. Hence, my desire to work in the dark. I love that. I love, once you're in the cocoon of filmmaking or the cocoon of the process of making anything, it's just y'all. It's just y'all as humans, as artists, as vulnerable beings. And so I think that everybody's vulnerable, and so it's no pressure in that regards. But I feel the pressure of what the value of the work is today, in thinking about the story of The Piano Lesson and the current political climate of folks not trying to hear our stories, and not listening to the truths, or trying to marginalize us even more than we've already been marginalized. That puts a certain weight on the value of what we say and what we share. I feel that. But when I'm in the cocoon, the cocoon is like, do this. Do this intentionally. Do this rigorously. Do this lovingly. Yeah. With these people, whomever they may be.
[00:41:40] Maori Karmael Holmes: You may not be a planner, I am not. But what are you imagining is your future career and other disciplines you want to experiment with? Do you imagine returning to dance in a more formal way? What are some of the things you want to get into?
[00:41:59] Danielle Deadwyler: Oh, wow. I hate getting hurt, because I feel like I'm always ready. I want to always be ready to do anything. I want to always be open to expanding. And yes to all those things. I want to dance every day, at the end of the day. But my body is like, "Excuse you. Think again." I want to do film in the weirdest way possible. I don't know if I can dance in a certain kind of way, but I'm willing to try. With the formalness of the past, who knows? I'm willing to be tested. I'm willing to be tested. To dance on the street, to do some weirdness like that. I remember doing something and it was just literally a 15-minute performance of literally just walking down the street, two women wearing red shirts or something, and that was it. I'm here for that too. I'm here for anything that's making us question what we see and how we are every day, and what kind of people we are. Because we need this questioning. The world is in this mania state, this state of mania and needs a bit slowing down. So anything that is pulling back, and pulling the world back and driving me forward to be renewed, to be anew, to be naked, to be shifted, I'm here for it.
[00:43:30)] Maori Karmael Holmes: What interests do you have outside of your artistic practice?
[00:43:36] Danielle Deadwyler: I've been weightlifting, and I've thoroughly enjoyed that. I love to brag on how much I can deadlift. And I never expected it to be something that I could do, let alone want to do every day or every other day. Because you got got to have your rest days. But I'm thoroughly enjoying that. It's super fun. I'm a nature walker too. That's just the thing, it's reviving. My acupuncturist talks about, "You need some vitamin D, and not from the pill." She would say the pill, but she says, "Go sit by a tree." And that's what I would be doing. And it's walking amongst forest and wooded areas is a thing, and I dig it, because quiet also. And being with works that are part of things that so many people are a part of the universe of making, particularly filmmaking. There's so many people on set together. And there is hardly a time to find peace. I mean, you could sit in your trailer, but I like to sit with the people. Just, I'm with the people. But when you're in the forest, it's a different kind of beingness that's happening out there. And now we are very clear that we know the trees are communicating, so maybe I'm trying to learn a new language. That's it. Hopefully I'll understand it one day, but I dig those places of solitude. Yeah.
[00:45:11] Maori Karmael Holmes: Yeah. My last question is, how do you find refuge?
[00:45:17] Danielle Deadwyler: Oh, yeah, it's there. It's the forest. And a bonus is the river. Because it's the earth and it's the flow of the water. And that's it. I'm not a beach girl. We are Tauruses, we like luxe, right?
[00:45:41] Maori Karmael Holmes: I definitely do.
[00:45:42] Danielle Deadwyler: We like luxury. But if I could take it down to bare bones and simplicity, it's just the fire space, a river flowing, and I could just watch the birds fly and land on the surface of the water all day. Yeah.
[00:46:03] Maori Karmael Holmes: I wish that for you as much as possible. Thank you so much, Danielle, this was so lovely.
[00:46:10] Danielle Deadwyler: Thank you. It's my pleasure. My great pleasure.
[00:46:21 Maori Karmael Holmes: To keep up with more of Danielle Deadwyler's work, you can follow her on Instagram @DanielleDeadwyler. This season of Many Lumens is brought to you by Open Society Foundations. It is produced by BlackStar Projects in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
The host and executive producer of Many Lumens is me, Maori Karmael Holmes. This episode was produced by Kayla Latimore. Associate producers are Irit Reinheimer, and Zoe Gregs. Managing producer is Alex Lewis, executive editor is John Meyers. Justin Berger is our final mix and mastering engineer. Our music supervisor is David "lil'dave" Adams. Our theme song was composed by Vijay Mohan and remixed by lil'dave. This episode features Music by Columbia Nights.
If you've liked what you've heard so far this season, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and let us know what you think of the show.
Sending you light and see you next time.