On May 17, HBO hosted a special screening of its latest original movie “All The Way,” which stars Anthony Mackie and Bryan Cranston as Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson, respectively.
The exclusive event was held at Jazz at Lincoln Center. The venue was transformed into a scene from the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Guests were able to take photos at a podium on a recreated political stage and inside a realistic oval office.
Cast and creatives in attendance included Anthony Mackie, Bryan Cranston, Hilary Ward (who plays Coretta Scott King), Executive Producers Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, Len Amato (President of HBO Films) and Lucinda Martinez (Senior Vice President of Multicultural Marketing at HBO).
Read our exclusive cast interviews below:
Bryan Cranston
You did this on the stage, so speak about bringing it to TV and what that process was like?
Bryan: For an actor developing a character, there’s no difference whether you’re doing it for stage or for film. You still want to do the same amount of research. You want to really get to the point where you truly understand and have welcomed that character in. When you first start a character, a story, it’s outside of you. The more work you do on the research, the more you understand. The next time you look up, it’s a little closer. Keep working, keep working, keep working. There’s no shortcut. I would tell that to young actors. Don’t look for a shortcut. Just do the work. Put your nose down, just do the work, keep working, and at some point trust that it’ll seep into you. Then once it does, then you own it and then it filters through that point. Taking it from stage, which is a verbal medium, to television or film, which is a visual medium, there are certain things mostly in the script that change. You can open it up, exteriors and things like that, to tell the story more visually.
May 17 is the 62nd anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.What kind of impact do you think that had on the Civil Rights movement?
Bryan: Oh my God. It was like an earthquake because it was a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation and we’re still dealing with Jim Crow laws and segregation. To this day we’re dealing with this. When we were doing the play two years ago, it was the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed July 2nd, 1964. Of course it’s not the end of it, but you need laws to support that. Otherwise the Emancipation Proclamation is just a proclamation, and you have to have laws to support that. You can’t govern what people think, but you can control behavior and action by laws. So I see cameras on policemen chests and cars. I’m all for it. Let’s be aboveboard. Let’s be honest about behavior. Let’s be accountable for our behavior. If that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes. We got to stop it. It’s ugly. It’s awful. It’s painful.
If your generation looks at this movie and through entertainment, and that’s what it is, we hope that what you take away is a little more insight to, “Respect history. Let me go back to history. Did that really happen?” Let me be a little more thankful perhaps for where I am now where I can go to school. And is there still prejudicial behavior? Of course there is. There always will be. As your generation becomes more and more powerful and more and more aware … I’m so proud of my daughter who’s probably your age, 23. To her, she sees no color, she sees no sexual orientation differences, and that’s the way it should be. Embrace everybody for who they are. Let their actions as a person prove who they are to you, and hopefully that’s what this shows.
In my lifetime this was happening. In my lifetime, my mother told me when I was six years old on a trip to Texas, ‘If you see a drinking fountain that says colored, don’t drink out of it.’ I didn’t know what it meant. I thought colored, I thought that would be pretty. I’m a six year old boy. God, I was looking for it everywhere. Hopefully I’ll find it. Is it purple? Is it grape flavored, the water? The innocence of a boy. Yet, of course, the tragic history of what that really meant was lost on me then. That was during my lifetime.
I can’t believe … that we treated, let alone citizens, another human being that way was like an assault to me. It’s assaulting to me. We do need to be careful of our words and our actions. We need to be responsible for that. We have a presidential candidate who is not responsible for that.
Anthony Mackie
This is an important figure you’re tackling. Speak about your decision to play Dr. King and that your process was like.
Anthony: It was one of reading and pictures, and fortunately when I found out about this movie I was in Atlanta shooting Captain America. My brother, a graduate of Morehouse, where Dr. King graduated from, I was able to go and see archival stuff that most people don’t see. I was able to spend time with men who marched with Dr. King. It made me realize that he was a very different man than the perception of him. We’re a generation that takes kindness and compromise for weakness and softness. He was a leader of men.
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Speak about the dynamic of between Dr. King and President Johnson, and playing that out.
Anthony: The relationship with them was very interesting. Dr. King was a great politician. I’ve never seen that. Of all the movies about him I’ve seen, I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen that aspect of him portrayed. With all of his negotiations between Stokely, and Ralph Abernathy, and all those guys who were in his inner circle, he had the same amount of negotiations with LBJ and all the people at the White House. He was the only one walking both sides of the line, and he did it with dignity and pride. He was able to get things done that not too many people would have been able to.
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On the 62nd anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, we just wanted to know from people, how do they feel education has helped them get to where they are today?
Anthony: Everything that I am is because of my education. I started taking acting classes when I was 7 years old. My parents were firm believers in to be is to study. My mom graduated from a negro appointed high school. It was very important for her that all of her kids go to college. I was fortunate enough to go to college for what I loved, as opposed to what I wanted to work in. 100% of who I am is because of my education, career wise.
Hilary Ward
So tell me, you play Mrs. Coretta Scott King, what did you learn about her?
I think that when we see her in pictures she is always so beautiful and glamorous and she was a very simple country girl married in Alabama and she learns about clothes, she learned about makeup, that was not her priority at all. She was also an accomplished musician, she studied to be a singer and had planned to actually be a performer before meeting Dr. King and getting married and made a different choice to [support] the movement and raise her children. I think those are the things people don’t know.
Talk about working with Anthony and this amazing cast and director.
He’s the absolute best. In between takes just full of energy, fun, silliness. He is a great guy but when the camera is going it’s all business and he is a extremely generous, present scene partner and I am so lucky to have worked with him.
Let’s talk about your part in the movie what did your character go through?
Well you got to remember the film is called All The Way so it’s about LBJ and all of the stories that are being told are very much in support of LBJ’s journey from falling into the presidency in this very unexpected, traumatic way and to the first election. So what I had loved about the script that we were given from Robert is that you got to see Coretta in the moments when it was just her and King at home and their dynamic when they aren’t in front of the leadership or when the cameras aren’t on and I think that’s really important and something that isn’t very often brought into portrayals of them, they’re always silent. So that was a great gift for me.
Having done this, has it changed your outlook on the way politics works?
Well yes, because I think we’re in a very volatile election year and there are a lot of hot feelings and it’s a very important reminder that people quite literally put their lives on the line to vote and so … we need to vote, we need to make a choice to use the privilege that many people fought and died for and I am so glad it’s coming along now because it’s not like these people are making easy choices they were making difficult choices but they made them.
After the screening, New York Times writer and Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson moderated a discussion on how the film’s stars (Cranston and Mackie) prepared to play two of the most important historical figures in U.S. History. All the Way airs exclusively on HBO tonight on Saturday, May 21 at 8:00 PM ET/PT. For more information visit www.hbo.com/movies/all-
Photo Credit: Karl Pierre
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