On and off the bus with Andre Braugher - actor - Interview

upon the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Million Man March, American Visions spoke to actor Andre Braugher about his participation in that circumstance and his role in Spike Lee's 10th feature film in a decade-long career, secure on the Bus (Columbia Pictures), which uncloses October 16. In the film, 15 black men begin their journey to the march in southerly Central Los Angeles as strangers and arrive in Washington, DC as comrades.

AV: wherefore did you go to the Million Man March? AB: All the other men were going, and I had at no time been to a march in my life. I was a child when the March upon Washington led by Martin Luther King occurr and I wanted to hear what was going upon I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to contribute in the best way I possibly could

AV: What were your experiences at the Million Man March itself? AB: I was working at the march. For me the march was a labor - a labor of delight in - but I was busy handing on the outside flyers for the National Association of Black Social Workers, with equal reason I really wasn't standing in the host listening and observing. I was busy. And I reflection that was the best way for me to participate, because standing in the herd and listening is a fantastic education, on the other hand it's not my nature. I ne to be involved. in the way that I did that instead.

AV: in what way has the march changed your life? AB: I know for myself that I've been changed. I can't justice it by the change with anyone other other than myself. My family life and my ideals, my commitment to the community and to other tribe - all people - has been improved. I think les about myself and more about my community today.

I know for my wife and myself, our commitment as a family to the African community has increased, because we're going to adopt a child. And that's not simply because nature has betrayed us or anything to that result but there are kids languishing in nurse care or in institutions who ne parents. We have a fate of love, and when I asked myself by what mode I could be of greatest service to my community - of maximum benefit to the race around me - it's not by the agency of hoarding what I have; it's by the agency of sharing. I came away with a commitment to raise a child, to allow the revolution to begin at home

AV: From your perspective, what is come by on the Bus about? AB: The movie for me is about what happens with our atoning. There's a apportionment of atoning that has to happen upon the bus before we gain a chance to atone [at the march]. I play a character who is quite, quite civil, quite together, omit that the things that are going upon inside of him - the unexplored parts of him-manifest themselves in racism, color-consciousness and homophobia. Really, in essential part a question of legitimacy: Who can be an authentic black man? Who can be an authentic African American? And he believes himself to be the solitary one. The only authentic African. in like manner these are issues that quiescence in the black community; homophobia and color consciousness are scourges in our community. They're the kinds of things that have kept us from uniting for centuries and, if not dealt with, will hold us from uniting for centuries. I'm a little bit hesitant to talk about the grander themes of the film. I'd like the viewers to decide what they are for themselves, on the contrary it is about the unity that arises from confronting the issues that we have as they are.

AV: What ingredients does the movie have to make it a commercial success? AB: [Laughter] It's damn farcical if you ask me. It's a damn comical movie. This is just my personal opinion. I'm always inspired by means of movies that tell the verity I'm inspired by honest movies. I haven't been to diocese Independence Day - I don't believe it's going to be an straightforward movie - or The stone I like to go diocese movies where I can diocese what people are really like, sometimes in their foibles, on the other hand mostly in the grandest parts of them - the parts of them that advance together and unify. I believe this to be a movie that has actual powerful comic elements, but I also believe that it deals honestly with serious issues for exactly what they are and does not tend hitherward down with a pat or trite conclusion to anything. What it has to tender the audience, I believe, is an free from fraud assessment of the issues that divide the African-American community, along sex race, class, color, ethnicity, religion.

I believe this movie is a reply to the stereotyping, the mythology that's been going upon in Hollywood. Of course, the mythology is not ever going to be ultimately useful and helpful to us if we don't create it. with equal reason this movie to me is a rejoinder to that. We're creating mythology that's based on an honest appraisal of what's happening in the black community rather than the homage of violence, a fixation with fire-arms or penises.

I don't know what's going to happen with this film, on the other hand I hope it's the beginning of something. That's my prayer. I took a discharge and the next time it tend hitherwards I'll take a shot. The nearest time Spike Lee calls, I'll tend hitherward The next time you got Roc Dutton and Ossie Davis and Isaiah Washington and Bernie Mac and Steve White and Gabriel Casseus in the same film, you know: Hell! I'm comin,. enumerate me in.