Cast Talks 'Moonlight' At NYFF Special Screening

We attended a special screening of Barry Jenkins’ magnificent film, Moonlight, at the New York Film Festival.

The film is the tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Moderator: We have all these wonderful actors out here but I wanted to ask you first a question about the original writing material and how you worked with it and what you did with it and what you found.

Barry Jenkins: Yes, so I didn’t know it too well before “Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” came to me from my co-producer Andrew Hevia … and it was clear because Andrew knew me and Tarell and so he read Tarell’s piece and he said “Oh man, this isn’t about you, but is about you, you have to read it.” And I read it and it was true, it wasn’t about me but it was very much about me so Tarell and I started talking about it and it kind of just took off from there and I felt like if I could do what I do while preserve Tarell’s voice, [we would] end up in a place that would bear fruit.

Tarell McCraney: Yes. No, I think that’s very true of my whole process, what’s stunning about it to me is that someone asked me before “is this what you envisioned?” Then I said “No, it’s not.” Not in a derogatory way but I couldn’t have imagined it this way, I’m not a filmmaker … I didn’t have that kind of language to create, but what’s more stunning about it is even though I’ve seen films that have talked about the issues that the story raises, nothing feels more … it’s surreal how real it is to me, there are moments that Barry has captured that feel like memory, feel like actual memory, feel like that’s the way I remember it happening in life, which is both at one time terrifying but also gratifying, because the moments are always the best moments, so that process, I think, what Barry described is very true it is a coming together of a framework around a story that we both felt was very important, does that make sense?

Barry Jenkins: When you speak it, it makes sense.

Moderator: One other general question like that, this place, and I felt like, at the end of the film, that if I ever went there, I would not know it, did you both grow up there?

Barry Jenkins: Yes, we both grew up a few blocks from each other, we went to the same schools, but didn’t know each other, which is kind of amazing in its own way but yes, we both grew up there.

Moderator: Let’s jump to the actors … I know that this film will come up in critics’ voting and it will come up in relation to “can we get a special award for the ensemble cast because who’s a lead and who’s supporting?” What I want to ask is how you made it into an ensemble because the three stages of Chiron and the three stages of friend Kevin who will eventually become lover Kevin, they never meet and so I’m curious about how do you, any of you, found yourselves in relation to your younger selves or your older selves or like that?

Andre Holland: Thank you so much for being here, it’s so crazy. It’s so special to get a chance to share this with you, and you’re so generous, we really truly appreciate it, I think, one of the interesting things about the sort of three generations of … three versions of these two people, is that none of us ever met, none of the actors ever met, and as per Barry’s guidance, I think we always were hungry to get a hand on each other, kind of figure out how does this person talk and move and speak, but at the end of the day what we really were after was sort of capturing the essence of who these people were, and Barry was a brilliant in guiding us to them.

Alex Hibbert: I think it was amazing, just the way we all look alike … it’s like so unreal, it’s crazy and I just want to say thank you guys for coming out and supporting.

Jharrel Jerome: I’ll say something, on that question, I think a lot of what Barry wanted was for us to find our own identity within our characters and there’s no way I can relate with him personally so I think not meeting the other two actors was almost like this amazing feeling where you know that André Holland is playing the older you, and you don’t think about it because you’re busy trying to personalize it for yourself and then when you watch the way André portrays the character, what he puts in the character, how did this line up so perfectly?

Moderator: I think the two women have another problem because theirs was the problem of aging through this whole thing … I guess what I’m asking you is how much did you know about what might have happened between each of the three parts, how much did you talk about that, think about that?

Janelle Monáe: I think for me, I felt very connected to Teresa when she was young and with Juan and after Juan had disappeared and she was with herself, I knew her, I felt like she was the young auntie, the older cousin in my community that I always talked to … she was consistent, that never changed, she may have been dressing differently but I wanted to make sure that throughout, from the beginning, middle and end, every time you saw her she was consistent. She’s a nurturer, she’s that shoulder that you can lean on, she would not judge you, and that she was really there for him, every stage of their lives, so I made sure that that was very clear, in each thing, or I tried to at least.

Naomie Harris: I think for me … It’s Chiron’s story and so you only see Paula at those moments that are important to convey Chiron’s story and so there are huge gaps in the story of Paula and what’s happening to her and that actually is a really exciting challenge as an actor because you get to use your imagination to tie up all those dots and to create a journey for yourself. The main thing for me in creating Paula’s story was that I had a lot of judgement when I first read the script, a drug addiction and about her being a very bad mother in my eyes and very brutal and very cold. The biggest journey for me was finding compassion for her and finding a way to fall in love with this character because I think to play any character you have to on some level, fall in love with them, and the way I did that was by researching drug addiction, particularly crack addiction among women, and I found that the vast majority of these women had experienced some form of sexual abuse in their life and that led me on to having so much compassion for Paula and also exploring further her story, I just wanted to know what makes someone into a mother like this, how does someone not have love, or not have the ability for it, she doesn’t have the love, she does have the love for her son, she has an inability to express love, and how does that happen? It was a beautiful journey because I had to confront all my issues of judgement and overcome those to be able to play her.

Moderator: Juan hangs over the entire film, he is the role model for Chiron, he’s the person who Chiron tries to become, and so what did you do to have that kind of presence?

Mahershala Ali: The main thing I tried to do with this character was connect to his heart … so for the first time I spent a lot of time outside to look like I was talking to myself, but it was the first time I spent a lot of time having a conversation with my character, trying to get to know him. I thought he had to have a spirit, so I prayed for him, I tried to create a relationship with this person and then the rest of it was managing anxiety, but in all honesty Alex is just a special little kid, and the story’s amazing, it was the best script I’ve ever read so a lot of the work was done for me and Barry’s such a phenomenal director so it’s just a combination of a lot of things I think contributed to what I hope is a believable relationship.

Barry Jenkins: Yes, I’ll piggyback on that because you’re talking about the time that passed between the stories and Juan does not carry over into the second story, for me it was important for Juan to not carry over into the second story because there were kids who grew up where I grew up, where there will be a surrogate father figure like Juan and that person gets snatched away from them without notice, and I wanted you guys sitting in this room to have this amazing character snatched away from you without notice and feel what these kids feel when these things happen … the information’s in the cut, you have these flashes between stories because people are living a lie, as the story and the chapters transition and you get to chapter two, it’s a whole new person, same character but different person because the world is just so damn heavy sometimes.