Hollywood Shuffle

“Hollywood Shuffle. Robert Townsend made this movie. It’s about being a Black actor in Hollywood. I found it so fascinating, and I still remember that line at the end, “There’s always work at the post office.” It was the first time I saw somebody define the ability to choose or not choose what they did, take authorship over their life and their art. And it remains very meaningful to me.”

“This! Come on. Hollywood Shuffle, movie made by Robert Townsend, man. This movie made me build my boat because I remember, like– Number one, this is a legit *censored* brilliant, funny movie, with fantastic acting in it and stuff. And he talked about using credit cards to pay for the movie, partially the budget. And I remember listening to that interview– And this was long before I ever thought about filmmaking, but that information stayed with me because I was like, “You could do that? That’s interesting.” Years later, I would use that information. So, I’ve never met Robert Townsend, but he’s one of my absolute heroes. This movie is incredible. He’s done other movies, The Five Heartbeats, Meteor Man. But this is, I honestly feel like this is the boat that launched a thousand ships. Mine being one of them. So if you were like, “Oh, I made a movie because of Clerks.” Well, then, really you made a movie because of Richard Linklater and Slacker and Robert Townsend, The Hollywood Shuffle. That makes me happy, man. That’s probably the happiest movie that I’ll discover in this closet. Unless I found a Clerks Criterion that I forgot they did.”

“Okay, Hollywood Shuffle, I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think I saw this long, long ago. When did it come out? Let's see, yeah, 1987. I would have been so young, too young to understand satire that well. I think it's going to speak to me and I love satire and I love satire of Hollywood because it's a dark and broken world.”

“Robert Townsend. Robert Townsend, you do not get enough credit. We love you for your creativity. The Five Heartbeats, The Meteor Man, Hollywood Shuffle. We love it. The satire in here. The commentary here. The tongue-in-cheek delivery of the lines. The mustache and the haircut. We learned a lot from you. One of the people I wish we said his name more. So I’m saying it right now. Do me a favor. If anyone has a DVD of The Five Heartbeats, Blu-ray – it doesn’t have to be Blu-ray – anything you have, send that to me.”

“All right, this next one is Hollywood Shuffle. If you’re a Blacktor, like me, or even a half Blacktor, this is mandatory, mandatory reading. It’s a bit meta as a movie. It’s a movie about the Hollywood industry, but it’s a movie about what Black actors go through. I saw this when I first moved to Los Angeles and then, twenty-three years later, I finally got a job.”

“The legend. Hollywood Shuffle. Robert Townsend, what a filmmaker. Oh, man, I really appreciate this film. There were so many things that were funny to me in this film before I started acting that are so much funnier now, and also a little painful, too. But just as a Black actor navigating and trying to traverse this terrain, I think that there are so many things in this film that are absolutely hilarious that Robert Townsend gets spot on, and this film should be talked about even more than what it is, so, Hollywood Shuffle.”