Video: THE PIANO LESSON is a Family Affair for Malcolm and John David Washington

Hello

Hi, gentlemen. John David, you and I have know each other because I spoke to during the Broadway run of the show

And Malcolm is great to meet you. Now, look behind. So I have your mom

Yeah, I was looking at this like, is that? That's crazy. I told your dad, I've known your mom since the early 80s

I think John David, she might have been pregnant with you during Jerry's girls, right? Oh, my God

I was looking at this. I know. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Can you explain to the people

Can you explain to the people what we're looking at? Okay, so right behind me is Jerry's Girls, which is the musical review on the songs and music of Jerry Herman, starring their mom

So I was Ted Hook's assistant. So I knew your mom then, and I told your dad numerous times, your dad was the coolest

He called your mom on the phone one day when I was interviewing. He was like, my God, I got Richard Ridge here

He's like, he knows you from Jerry's girls. Oh, my goodness. So as we get some

start here. This is a full circle moment for me. Like I said, getting to know your mom and of course

your dad, but this film is sensational. I want to start with that

Thank you. Thank you. Talk about working together and what made this project so

special for each of you. You know what? I'm still like in this Jerry's girl. That's kind of great

I know. There's a lot of members attached to, but yeah. And it just

brings me to that where it's like I've this project in the making of it

has been such a blessing because I I feel like in our film, we start our film with boy Willie having this moment with his father

and his father gives him his hat as his goodbye. And he goes on for the rest of his life wearing his father's hat

And in the making of this film and the releasing of it and talking about it, I've had so many moments like that where I feel like I'm wearing my father or my mother's hat, you know

and I reconnecting with a certain part of themselves. And we're kind of forging a new relationship in this adulthood as we've all kind of closed this loop

and this is one of those moments for me right now and speaking to you because who my mom was as an artist

you know, in that time of her life before I was born, all of that is she's put into us, you know what I mean

and has informed us in so many ways. So coming back to it now and honoring her

and having this conversation, it's just, it's too much, it's too much. It's pretty emotional

Yeah. She's talked, she's shared this before. We joke about it a lot where she essentially chose

me, you know, over Jerry's girls. I'm like, I'm like, my, I could have waited

You know, you could have just gone on that run real quick. Get your little Tony real quick. And then I'll be ready to go

I'll be ready to come out. It'll be the same guy. I swear. It would have been caught to you. Yeah, it would have been caught to you

So I think about that all the time when I'm going to work, when I'm taking on

particularly when I got to go on stage. And I got to say also, it means so much that you felt this way about the film

because, you know, stage and film are two different mediums. Sometimes they don't get along

Sometimes there's a Crip blood. kind of relationship to it. So it's great that, and that was my hope

that we can merge the two and find a way to find a common language for both

So it so great that you said that in both communities Yeah Oh because I been following this play from the very very beginning So to watch you know the original productions then your production

and now, Malcolm, your gorgeous film. What did you each learn from each other or learn about yourselves

after working together on this film? I, you know, I got to see John David in a new way

I think as a younger sibling, you kind of, you have this like

You look at your older siblings kind of in relation to yourself. So you think about like, you see how they walk or how they talk and you might, you know, try to dress like them or you just think of the world

You see them move through the world and you think of how this relates to yourself in that kind of like, in that kind of way

And as a director, you're just watching so much. You're seeing. You're looking into an actor's eyes

You're looking to their behavior and to how they move their body. And you see them

You're trying to, you know. And in many ways, when I saw John David working, I saw him in a new way

It was detached from myself just who he is, into his spirit, into his soul that the camera was capturing

And I saw a really honest and empathetic and sweet artist, you know, who's laying everything on the line with no ego, just searching, searching for truth

And I think that that was such a wonderful way to see him. And I was saddened that it took 32 years at that point to see that

but I'm grateful that I did. John David, for you? Honest, I saw, because I was working

yes, I was obviously working with my brother, but I didn't see him like that. This is a filmmaker I've been wanting to work with for a while now

knowing his films, knowing his shorts and his music videos, and just how he feels about film

how passionate he is about art. And what I saw, you know, I don't even know if I'm going to articulate it correctly

but I saw cinemas in great hands for the, future. I saw the future of what we can say as black folks, as American cinemas, as artists

I saw what's possible watching him work. And what was most exciting was you could be that

brilliant and you don't have to be a jerk. You can be that brilliant, still be kind. You can be that

remarkable and well-knowing and knowledgeable about the arts and what you want and still know

how to talk to people on a human level, that he still understands the importance of connectivity

And that's what's filtered through his film. You know, your dad, Denzel, you know, has wanted to bring the August Wilson Canada plays to the screen

He has done such a beautiful job so far. What that means to you of the importance of this film and, you know, spreading August Wilson's

words and what he stands for to a future generation, what that means to the two of you

that like Boy Willie, he could leave his mark on the world somehow

There were some students that were at Tell Ury, high school students

I believe from Baltimore, maybe Philadelphia, and high school students, and they were just as passionate as I was about the story about the themes of this And that the point that we able to usher in a new generation of folks that will take on the rest of these plays and do it in their way and their relationship to the world and how they see history because of something that we did

We are standing on the shoulders of Samuel Jackson, Michael Potts, Lloyd Richards

you know, obviously August Wilson, who shepherd this whole thing, who made this whole thing, that that's the whole point of it, intergenerational connectivity

Malcolm for you. I can't, I can't. That was perfect. I stand on that

But, I mean, there was something about when you read this play, Malcolm, you were like

I have to make this, right? This story itself really resonated with you as an artist and a filmmaker, didn't it

Absolutely. I mean, the themes were just so powerful and something that I was

ideas that I was considering that were kind of going around in my head already, and it was kind of just distilled in this way that I could just receive what he was trying to say

and I felt like it was important to pass that on. you know, to see myself kind of as this conduit of taking this story

and bring it to a new audience for young people like myself

could see themselves in it and know that they had access to it. You know, some of these stories and the idea of theater sometimes can feel so far away

Like Broadway can feel so far away. And it can, you win a Pulitzer Prize winning play feels like the highest level of fine art, you know

So people don't always feel like they have. access to it, that they can digest it. And I just wanted to let them know that they could

that it's part of their lineage and that there's power in that. You know, I love how you opened up the film. What unlocked the film for you to tell the

broader story? Was it something you had in your mind from the very beginning of how you wanted

to shoot the film? You know, the shooting was a consequence of it, but it was more of

almost like abstracting the themes from it. You know, like breaking those things

themes down of, okay, what does that mean? What does ancestry mean? What does legacy mean? What do

these things mean? And how do you feel that? Because ultimately, you know, how you shoot it and all the

kind of technical parts of it, all that's trying to construct is to get you to a feeling, to get the

audience to a feeling. When the ancestors surround Bernice and Boy Willie and they lay hands on

them, you should feel that. You should think of your ancestors. You should think of who would be

in your moment of need, who up your family tree would be there with their hand on

on your shoulder and maybe who's there right now that you aren't even acknowledging, you know

So it's to get to that feeling. And John, David, for you, I mean

you were so brilliant on stage in this and you brought a whole new version of him to the film

Did you start from scratch again, sort of, to bring him to life on film

as opposed to the way you brought him to life on stage? More or less, yeah, yeah, by necessity

You know, it would have been ignorant of me to think, oh, I got it, I've done it already, I'll just bring that over

because it's a totally different response. responsibility in the way that Malcolm was shooting it, the way that the script was constructed

You know like his backstories changed His backstory now is in the movie He was there at the scene in the crime as a kid seeing his father and his uncles take the piano So the emotional tracking of his of his past was different in a great way So I had to I had to repurpose some things if you will

re-apolster some emotions that were a good thing and that kind of discovery. Luckily

and what I love about stage is you get to discover something every night, right, every time

you do it. And this, you know, you get some discoveries every take. You get some discoveries

on what the set is like and the intimate feel of the interiority of the character, the behavior of the character is I kind of used to push forward

in portraying this character. So my final question is, this is a family affair, it's a Washington

affair in the best way, your dad, your sister's, your mom, what are the two of you the proudest

of with this beautiful film? I'm proud of each other. You know, I'm proud of, this is a film

really made by community. Our family is as part of that, but so is Danielle

and Sam Jackson and Michael Potts, all of these were all tied in

and even beyond our own production. Like, this is a community that's, you know, you come from the theater

so you know what that means with these, with these productions. There's a community that came together

and I'm so proud of the work that each and every member of this community did

and what they committed to it. Like I said, gentlemen, I could talk to you forever

Thank you very much for giving us this beautiful piece of work. Oh, my, like, it's

I've kind of been looking at an interview. I'm messing up my answer. This was, that was crazy

I just been thinking about that, so thank you. Thank you for this moment. Yeah. That's your family

That's your family. That's your blood. Sometimes you be in trouble, they might be around to help you

Tell your mama to tell you about that piano. Ask her how them pictures got on there

Oh! You feel that? That's your family

That's your blood