Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences)
On Realizing His Dreams Through Effort
“You just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I had the great fortune to direct a play about the life of Muhammad Ali. I accepted it, and this young man had written it along with a newspaperman from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it lead us to a place where the Champ came to see the show. Then I saw a play called Joe Turner’s Come And Gone, and I heard those words and exalted language and poetic text, and I said, ‘I want to do that.’ Then I got a chance to audition for it in Pittsburgh. It just comes around. Then Denzel was doing Fences. I had done a quite a few August Wilson plays, and a friend of mine said, ‘You’re going to go audition to be in an August Wilson play?’ I said, “There’s only one reason to audition, and that’s because you want to play the part.’ I said, ‘If I didn’t care whether I play it or not, I wouldn’t.’ I really wanted to do it and I really wanted to work with Denzel, since I had seen his body of work. If you stay on the train, it’s going to come into the station.”
On Shooting in Pittsburgh’s Hill District
“We were in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, and the neighbors were so proud to be a part of it. They had had Denzel come and knock on their doors and say, ‘We’re going to be in your neighborhood for a few months, do you mind?’ Of course, they embraced him. One place Denzel went—I love telling this story—he finished talking to this lady, and said to her, ‘We’re going to be here, so keep your front yard clear, and pray for me that I do right by August Wilson,’ and the lady said, ‘Baby, I’ve been praying for you for 35 years.'”
On Getting It True Rather Than Right
“You never try to get it right. You try to get it true. If you work with something right, you aren’t going to care if someone else says it’s right or wrong. If you work on a work of art, you’re just trying to get it true, so every time is the first time, the time to get it true. Six years earlier [we] did it on stage, and you had different options, because you wanted to raise or lower your performance to the audience. [In the film] we are in the backyard, with the dogs barking and the birds chirping. You just want to make sure you hear what was said to you, and respond as truthfully as you possibly can.”
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