Bamboozled

“Now, speaking of Spike Lee, imagine my surprise when a film that I'm in, Bamboozled, made Criterion status. Words will never describe the entire experience of us shooting this. So Spike Lee comes to Electric Lady Studios, and the first thing he pulls out is just a bunch of these minstrel entertainment era dolls. And he explained to me the premise of Bamboozled. Now, mind you, it's 1999, and, you know, this is one of the cases in which a satire is so over the top, exaggerated. We looked at each other like, "Is he crazy? This'll never fly. He thinks there's a future in which, like, non-actors are going to be on television and they'll do whatever it takes to be famous, no matter what, like, to their dignity? He thinks that's gonna happen one day?" And he purposely put our trailer three blocks away from the set. So, in full blackface make-up and a jail suit, the Roots have to walk three blocks. And, without context, everyone's looking at us like... "Nah, that's not them." Like, literally, it was so over the top that no one knew it was the Roots. And now that it's 25 years later, everything, everything in this movie has happened. So, it's one of those things where Spike was so ahead of time that time eventually caught up to him. But, yeah, Bamboozled, Spike Lee.”

“Bamboozled, probably the best movie about television ever made.”

“Spike Lee, Bamboozled. Spike Lee, one of my personal heroes, could take or leave me, but, he's one of my, he's the reason I went to film school because he was doing press for Do the Right Thing in 1989. And he mentioned film school. And I was like, film school, you say. And, and then I applied and somehow got in. Oh, interesting. Side note about Spike Lee. I, I did, I created Chappelle's Show with Dave and, Spike did a sketch one time and in the middle of the take my cell phone started ringing. And, Spike charged me 20 bucks. He has a thing on his set. If a cell phone goes off, you pay the director 20 bucks. I was technically probably the director on the sketch, but I paid him 20 bucks 'cause he's Spike Lee and he is great.”

“Bamboozled. You know, the problem of the Black, the image of the Black in the Western world, you know, these cameras that we use were invented by, you know, these white men who had access to everything, and they had an agenda, you know, to create a world that could justify their perpetual dominance. And blackface and minstrelsy is a part of that agenda, you know. And I think Professor Spike Lee, who's my professor at Tisch, I think he really broke open a conversation and managed to help the whole world understand the damage those images did through this film. And, you know, Damon Wayans, Miss Jada Pinkett Smith, Tommy Davidson, again, another incredible, incredible talented actor that we need to see more of. I saw this movie in Philadelphia in a theater, and I remember sneaking in Budweiser and cigarettes and smoking during the film, because I was like, ain't no white man gonna tell me I can't smoke a cigarette while I'm watching this movie. So thank you, Spike.”

“Spike Lee, Bamboozled. Saw this movie before I worked in Hollywood. Loved it. Terrified me. Having worked in Hollywood for more than 20 years, it’s scary how accurate and prescient it is. If you want to work in Hollywood, everybody should see this movie before doing so. Also annoyingly hard to find, so get the DVD.”

“And this movie, I saw in college for the first time, and what he’s doing with genre here is so fascinating, what he’s doing with the history of Black people in white entertainment and then also the history of Black people’s self-generated Black entertainment and the intersection of those two things. I love art that makes the viewer aware of themselves in a different way, and I just can’t recommend Bamboozled more highly.”