Terrence Howard Interview, Fighting

Writer/director Dito Monteil weaves a tale of two men headed straight for failure…until they cross paths and realize each has exactly what the other needs for big success. Small-town boy Shawn MacArthur (Channing Tatum) has come to New York City with nothing.  Barely earning a living selling counterfeit goods on the streets, his luck changes when scam artist Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard) sees that he has a natural talent for street fighting.  When Harvey offers Shawn help at making some real cash, the two form an uneasy partnership. The cast also includes Luis Guzman, Zulay Henao, and Brian White.

MoviesOnline sat down with Terrence Howard at the Los Angeles press day for “Fighting” to talk about his new movie. The filmmakers were eager to work with Howard, whose role in “Hustle & Flow” earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.  For the Oscar-winning Best Picture “Crash,” Howard and the all-star cast, including Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton and Matt Dillon, received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Recently the versatile actor was also seen in the box-office smash “Iron Man” starring opposite Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges. 

Howard wanted to work with Dito Montiel ever since the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, when he was part of the jury that awarded Montiel that year’s Dramatic Directing Award for “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.”  “The chances he took in putting that film together!  It was one of the most original and unique ways of telling a story I’ve ever seen in my life,” commends Howard. “That’s what brought me to this film. I knew I was betting on the right horse.”

Terrence Howard’s Harvey, in a situation inspired by Midnight Cowboy, takes Shawn in and becomes his mentor.  Howard responded to the fact that both Shawn and Harvey have reached a desperate point in their lives and are looking for one good break.  “Harvey is somebody who’s down-and-out and trying to find his way,” says Howard.  “Any time the door of opportunity opens, he’ll walk in there—whether it’s selling shoes or socks or helping somebody do some street fighting. But Harvey’s no street fighting guru; he’s new to the game, like Shawn.”

Terrence Howard is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Just as our interview is about to start, Channing Tatum rushes into the room, surprises Terrence with a mock karate chop to the neck, and rushes back out before he can react.

Q: I can see you guys have a great relationship.

TERRENCE HOWARD: Oh my God. Yeah, we’re brothers that want to kill each other.

Q: But in the movie you have a respectful kind of relationship

TERRENCE HOWARD: Yeah, because I know that he’s very temperamental in a very strange, transient place, that you push him too hard he’ll flip, and I think that’s why he flipped out when Zulay was asking for money.

Q: Zulay described you as being a very intense actor, yet you don’t strike me as being intense?

TERRENCE HOWARD: I think I ride life like it’s a beautiful go-cart. In real life, me and my friends will get out there and we’re going to make a go-cart, and you spend so much time finding pieces to make the go-cart. Sometimes it don’t work but then all of a sudden you’ve got a go-cart that’s working, and right when you start riding down the hill your mother calls you and tells you you’ve got to come in. So the little boy has to stop right then and there, and he comes in and he’s angry and he’s sullen in his face.  And I’m having such a great time in my life right now, I’m making go-carts, you know? And then when they call me and make me come to work, I walk in there and I slam doors and I do all those things that a little bad kid would do.

Q: So you would describe yourself as a little bad kid?

TERRENCE HOWARD: A little bad kid that doesn’t have any Adderall.

Q: Why is acting not your go-cart?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Oh my God, because there’s other people telling me where I got to go. It’s not my go-cart any more.

Q: But it could be?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Not when somebody else is writing the check. You’re in their field. You play baseball or basketball in somebody else’s house, where they have all the rules of the court and that’s no fun, that’s no fun whatsoever. 

Q: It seems like the character you played in this could have turned out to be the corrupt a-hole but he comes across very differently – is that something you brought to it?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Nah, he’s got a mean streak of morality running up his spine. He’s like, remember Val Kilmer said as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, “My hypocrisy only goes but so far,” and later on he said, “My hypocrisy seems to have no bounds,” Harvey, his hypocrisy only went but so far. He could cheat somebody on the street, he didn’t like fighting, and he couldn’t take a person’s life, but he didn’t help people live, so he’s at that strange place between good and bad where he’s not good, so he’s definitely bad, but doesn’t want to accept that he’s bad. If you’re not doing the right things, and that bothered him constantly, because he knew he was more decent than that. He didn’t have Jack’s heart, he didn’t have Martinez’s heart, he had Shawn’s heart and was pretending to be something that he wasn’t.

Q: What attracted you to this?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Dito, Dito Montiel and Channing, just the idea of working with them after watching “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.” I was floored by that, absolutely floored by it.

Q: What was it like working with Channing?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Oh, Channing, he reminded me of who I wished I was when I was 21, 22. Oh yeah, because he’s in a great position and he’s still very light, he doesn’t carry any of his demons on his skin. It took me a long time to know to leave the demons inside of a refrigerator someplace, and thaw them out when you need them. He’s managed to do that so early on that he comes to set and he’s so free and he doesn’t have to have this big bag of badness with him. He’s so great, and I love that about him, I absolutely love that. I think he’s going to be one of the most fantastic actors on the planet, by the end of 20 years of sitting there playing the way he’s playing now, the fearlessness of the roles that he’s taking. Randall Wallace showed me something that he’s doing with Channing. There’s a presence that Channing has, I think he’s just being genuine. I bumped into an actor last night, Oscar winner, Grammy nominated, Grammy winner, but the quality of life wasn’t there, the quality of spirit, the quality of inquisitiveness.

Q: Is it lack of ego?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Yes, he has no ego whatsoever. He has no ego.

Q: What about you?

TERRENCE HOWARD: My ego is in my children now. They are what’s beautiful about me, they are what’s intelligent and what’s creative about me. So you can’t have but one ego in a room, so I’d rather they have it than me.

Q: How old are your kids?

TERRENCE HOWARD: 11, 13 and 15.

Q: Do you want them to follow in your footsteps?

TERRENCE HOWARD: My daddy raised me as a contractor, and so for most of my life, I did construction. I’m sure because I’m in this business the kids are naturally going to pick pig farming.

Q: In “Pride” you were the lead, have you been looking for any more leading vehicles?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Yeah, but I had to wait for a minute to trust where I was going. Me, Laura Ziskin and Tom Schulman, who wrote “Dead Poets Society,” we’re about to do a film called “Morgan’s Summit,” where I go back into the lead. I’m about to do “Macbeth,” which we’re producing. We’re going to do that this summer, and then “Chevalier and Antoinette” is another film I’m producing.

Q: Can you talk more about the other films you’re going to do?

TERRENCE HOWARD: “Morgan’s Summit” is really one of the most fantastic films I’ve ever read in my life. Tom Schulman wrote “Dead Poets Society” and he heard me on NPR and asked me to come in. We began talking about what he wanted to accomplish. The characters in the script are so beautiful, so beautiful, I’m not even going to spend the time talking about it today, but “Morgan’s Summit” is the film that I’ve been waiting for. And talking to some people about doing some incredible bio-pics right now.

Q: Whose bio?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Ummm, I learned that lesson the hard way. Macbeth, my production company is producing that. We’re shooting in Puerto Rico starting in June.

Q: And you play?

TERRENCE HOWARD: I’m playing Hamlet.

Q: Is it updated to present time?

TERRENCE HOWARD: It’s updated to present time Caribbean. It will be a nice thing to see Shakespeare under a Caribbean sun.

Q: We were all really looking forward to seeing you continue in “Iron Man,” what happened with that?

TERRENCE HOWARD: “Iron Man” happened with that, Marvel happened with it. They took it and made a choice, they made a very, very bad choice, they didn’t keep their word, they didn’t honor our contract, they sent everyone out into a field and told them to work and produced a great bounty, and you produce a great bounty and then when it’s all in the storehouse you’re not allowed in to the storehouse.

Q: They were pulling some crap with Samuel Jackson too.

TERRENCE HOWARD: They did the same thing with Gwyneth, from what I’ve been told, they did it with almost everyone I think except Downey, throughout the thing. But one of the things that actors need to learn to do is take a tip from friends, when you always choose to stick together, you know, one for all and all for one, our gang, let Spanky be our rule.

Q: Did it teach you a lesson about the politics of Hollywood filmmaking?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Yeah, make sure you’re T’s are crossed twice.

Q: It seems so outrageous to me.

TERRENCE HOWARD: But coming from human beings it’s not.

Q: Are you kind of dangerous to them, now that you know their plans for the trilogy, you could tell people?

TERRENCE HOWARD: No, you don’t have to – when someone does something wrong, you don’t have to get them back. Everything right will return the favor for you.

Q: Karma?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Oh my goodness.

Q: I hope I never get on your bad side

TERRENCE HOWARD: No, I’m on the side of right, so as long as you keep trying to do what’s right and you make your mistakes along the way and accept the consequences of your mistakes, you’ll keep surviving. Harvey refused to accept the consequences of his mistakes, he refused to change, he refused to grow, he refused to be human and became something less than human.

Q: Until the end.

TERRENCE HOWARD: I don’t even think he’s made that transition in the end. Remember, look into his eyes.

Q: Do you think this sets itself up for a sequel?

TERRENCE HOWARD: I don’t know, man.

Q: Somebody’s going to be mad that they got the money

TERRENCE HOWARD: That would be interesting. I’d be interested in seeing what Harvey is like in the future. I haven’t delivered Harvey home yet, so you’re still kind of responsible for them until they get home.

Q: How about music, what are doing in the music world?

TERRENCE HOWARD: (shows his hand with very long nails) My flamingo is incredible now. I’m working on my second album right now.

Q: Do you have a title for it?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Don’t know yet.

Q: What kind of music? Will it reflect more who you are now?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Yeah, I mean, the first album reflected my nature, the things that I dream of. It was my backdrop, faraway so that you paint the big sky and you paint the sun and you paint the clouds and you paint the landscape and the mountains in the background, so this one should paint a little – that midrange of me. I don’t know who I am yet, so along the way, after about three or four albums I’ll be able to predict where I am, but you can never really see where you are, because you’re so busy looking at everything else. You have to move past you to stop and take a look back, so I don’t know if it will reflect me, but it will reflect where I’ve passed.

Q: Do you love doing all kinds of music?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Everything.

Q: So are you choosing which kind of music that you want to represent?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Nah, you don’t choose to represent any of them, I don’t believe. I think you have to – we’re all antennas, no thought has ever come to you that’s just been indigenous of you, it’s where electricity is moving through us, the same way it’s moving through everything else, and there’s waves of activity according to how things expand in the universe anyway, so that electricity is moving through that, and every once in awhile you’ll be pushed up on that wave to where you’ll catch a frequency from something else. And because you were in the right particular frequency yourself, you can respond to it, and maybe you’ll translate it out but if you don’t translate it what ends up happening is you’re not able to continue moving according to how everything else is moving.

Q: Is music more your go-cart than acting?

TERRENCE HOWARD: Music is my go-cart, because it’s all mine, it’s all mine.

Q: Couldn’t you write something in the movie world that could be your go-cart?

TERRENCE HOWARD: I am doing that. A couple of projects.

Q; Can you elaborate?

TERRENCE HOWARD: No, it’s not good to, it not good. I’ve learned that the hard way. If you speak of something, you lose it. The things that made me want to be an actor in the very start were films that told the story of a child’s dream, the regrets of an adult’s past, but the hope of a grandmother’s future. Anything that can really take you through a continued progressive life, that’s how the film will be – I’ll have to have music as a base for it, because I think music creates the fourth dimension. You have your black and your white, which are one and two, you add color, you’ve got your three, but music gives you depth, music gives you a sense of time, chronological order begins where the music begins, not where the color begins. So you need to tell a full story that way.

Q What about Broadway, would you go back if you found a play you really wanted to do?

TERRENCE HOWARD: As long as it’s not eight shows a week, I love Broadway, but I love tarry too, I love tarry time, and you don’t have any tarry time when you’re doing Broadway, because you’re always thinking about the character. You’re never able to walk away from him, and then you’ve got to do him twice on Wednesday and twice on Saturday. You’ve got to rehearse with new people when somebody’s stepped out of it. You’ve got people in the front of the audience looking at you (makes funny face like ‘what are you doing?’)

Q: Which of the big summer movies are you looking forward to?

TERRENCE HOWARD: God, I don’t even know which ones are coming out.

Q: “G.I. Joe,” “Transformers.”

TERRENCE HOWARD: “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe,” I want to see both of them.

Q: “Star Trek?”

TERRENCE HOWARD: “Star Trek,” no, I don’t know, I’m a Trekkie fan too, but you don’t mess around with Leonard Nimoy’s persona. I don’t know. Keep going and telling the future, don’t go back.

Q: Are you looking forward to seeing “Iron Man 2”?

Q: Yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to it. I want to see what happens with that. I want to see Don Cheadle become me. I want him to be better than me. That’s what I really want to see. And I think he can, Don Cheadle is the reason I got on “Crash.” He was one of the producers on “Crash” and he called and got me in there, so it’s like Don has been good by me, anything he does, he’s given me the greatest gift that I could ever imagine having. Don gave me that, so anything I have I’ll share with him.

Q: How do you teach your kids a good work ethic with all the success you’ve had?

TERRENCE HOWARD: I think in the work ethic was established, I think we all know it, it’s what you’re doing at least you’re doing great, because everything is going to follow another pattern, it’s going to multiply and the more complex you make a situation, the more divided nature you need to go through to understanding it. And if you keep dividing down and dividing and dividing down, you’ll ultimately end up in negative numbers, nobody wants to do that. So keep it simple, keep it factorable. Make sure no matter whatever you do there’s a factor for it that you can get back to the beginning.

Q: Is dividing yourself between movies and music a little dangerous?

TERRENCE HOWARD: No, I multiply with them.

“Fighting” opens in theaters on April 24th.