Press Conference Interview With The Cast And Director Of Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Is there a moment in the film that shifted your perspective on how African Americans were treated during the civil rights movement?

Lee Daniels: For me it was a father and son story. It was a father and son love affair, which transcends race. It wasn’t until we were on the bus, and we were shooting that bus scene. I yelled “action” and I’m in the bus with these actors, these kids, and from nowhere come the Nazis and the KKK, and the cursing, and the spitting, and the shaking of the bus. I yelled “cut” and they didn’t hear me. They continued on.

David, Yaya, and I are looking at each other like, “What the hell?” and for that millisecond, I understood what it was like to be them. Not just the black kids that were there, but the white kids that were there, who were willing to risk their lives. I broke down crying because I knew then that this was not just a father and son story.

Oprah Winfrey: I thought a lot about what it meant to be a woman in the 50s and 60s, a woman like Gloria, or a woman like myself. All of us got a little fire inside. She’s a composite of women of that era who sacrificed. The Butler couldn’t be who he was had it not been for her.

Do you feel that Lee sought to tell the whole truth of what African Americans experienced while living during the civil rights movement?

Oprah Winfrey: I had worked with him on Precious behind the scenes, so I wanted the opportunity to be in his hands. Contrary to what people assume about me, I’m really not a control freak. I have lived through the Kennedy assassination, so I definitely had some opinions about that.

Lee Daniels is a truth seeker. He will literally not let any of his actors get away with a breath that is a false moment. He doesn’t allow you as an actor to get away with anything that remotely appears to be fake.

Speaking of the Kennedy assassination, James, what was the process of becoming JFK for the film?

James Marsden: Well, clearly everyone is going to want to hear the accent. He has such a specific accent. The great thing nowadays is you can download all of his speeches. I would listen to his voice, and his wonderful speeches. It was eye opening to me. Lee allowed us an opportunity to have a different take on the Kennedy’s from what we’ve seen them as.

For the cast, what was the overall experience of working with Lee on the set?

Lenny Kravitz: There was a scene in the movie where we are all in the house together, and I think Lee thought it would be nice if there was a parrot there. I don’t think Lee thought the parrot would act, but the parrot did what the parrot wanted to do. It became a very interesting part of the scene.

David Oyelowo: I’ve had the privilege of working with Lee on both The Paperboy and The Butler. No other director I’ve worked with makes me feel like I’m infinitely better as an actor. He gets to know you as a person, and then he makes it a point to bring you to places you don’t know you can get to.

Terrence Howard: Lee was so serious about nothing being fake. I had a cap on one of my teeth, and he said, “Fake! Get rid of it! I want the little brown thing, that’s truth!” (laughs)

Lee Daniels: In regards to the presidents I think they have done a tour de force job, and I think that’s what makes me a filmmaker and you an interviewer.

Forrest Whittaker: I have played historic characters a number of times. This is not a documentary. These are artists trying to convey a spirit of person in a time. Liev and James did, I think, beautiful jobs.

I didn’t look anything like Charlie Parker (in Bird). I don’t really look anything like Idi Amin (in The Last King of Scotland) and I feel like what we’re trying to find is like the spirit and the soul of the character.

Liev Schreiber: I am authentically sorry that you didn’t like what we did, I really am. But I think part of the task was in those particular roles was to be present in those historical figure. This is where I’m talking about perspective and context, where they may not be as you or history remembers them. They are seen through the eyes of the Butler and his family.

I agree with you. Watching the film, there is a huge disconnect from what I remember about Lyndon Johnson, who was one of the most prolific presidents of our time in terms of passing legislation. But that wasn’t the story.

It was important as actors that we contextualize our performance and everything that we were doing around this very tough nut of a perspective to make the film unique. So I appreciate your perspective but I think that what we were trying to do was a little more difficult.

Cuba Gooding Jr.: There’s a serious disconnect with today’s youth, in terms of what happened during the civil rights movement. Lee and I were in an interview in Philadelphia, and there was a white, 27-year-old college graduate radio disc jockey who had a sea of 13-year-old listeners. He’s a fan of the rapper Mac Lamar, who has a lyric in his song about the sit-ins.

The DJ told Lee and I during the interview that he didn’t understand what that lyric was until he saw The Butler. A lot of the actors probably didn’t resemble the people at the actual sit-ins, but they informed this young man who already had a college education of the atrocities on American soil. He hoped to inform young people that there were white and black people who did fight for a cause.

Also, when Louis was presenting himself at the table as a Panther, I interviewed Panthers. They did not look the way he was dressed in attire.

Lee Daniels: I had uncles who were Panther. Louis was based on my uncles that were Panthers. So you might have interviewed Panthers but I have lived with them. I am proud of my uncles who were Panthers.

David Oyelowo: We are dealing the world of specificity. If you look at history from a distance you can make all sorts of decisions. But we are dealing with a very specific family. When Louis turns up to that house to sit around that table with his hat on, he chooses to keep his hat on. He turns up in a mesh-leather shirt with his nipple showing. That is a statement that he wants to make to his specific father because of their specific relationship.

To have that broad view I think you have drunk the Kool-Aid. You have been indoctrinated into a way of looking at black people that we are trying to defy.

That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Forrest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, Mariah Carey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden and Lee Daniels for taking the time to speak with us. Make sure to check out Lee Daniels’ The Butler when it opens in theaters on Friday, August 16.