An actor’s actor, an activist’s activist
Don Cheadle has a quiet strength about him. Although he admits he is a private man, his ability to channel others has not only earned him the label of an “actor’s actor,” it enables him to relate to others’ pain as his own.
So after finishing his Oscar-nominated work on “Hotel Rwanda,” about the genocide there, he immediately addressed the racial cleansing of Darfur, which has displaced more than 2 million people. The 42-year-old actor’s need to help led to the documentary “Darfur Now,” coming out in theaters this Friday.
We talked to Cheadle on the phone from Los Angeles, where he lives.
Q: How did you first get interested in Darfur?
A: After the filming of “Hotel Rwanda,” we had a screening for the film at MGM. And Congressman Ed Royce, from Orange County … asked me to accompany him and several members from Congress on a congressional delegation to the area, to see for myself what was happening. So we went to the camps in both Chad and Darfur and met with the African Union and just sort of got ourselves educated on the issues. And once I came back to the U.S. to my cushy life, it was very hard to carry on business as usual. I sort of got pulled into the stream of activists.
Q: What is it that convinced you to help?
A: Definitely being there. It wasn’t like anybody was trying to talk me into it. I just saw with my own eyes and experienced firsthand these sites that made it through attacks, bombings, attacks by the militia, attacks by the government … Coming to L.A. and back to my comfort with my family and my kids - who I saw in those kids. It was just impossible for me, personally, to not get involved.
Q: Do you see yourself having a responsibility as an actor to help?
A: That word makes it sound it’s like a job. I don’t like to raise it to that level, because I think oftentimes it has the opposite effect. People reject it like - well, you don’t tell me what my job is to do. It’s not my responsibility. But, it definitely was something that moved me and I was touched by it. I knew I had a lot of tools at my disposal and thought it would be a waste to just go through life without trying to impact situations that were that grave and were that serious. That just seemed to make sense to me at a spiritual level.
Q: Yet you didn’t want to be in the documentary.
A: I didn’t really want to be the focus of that. I’m kind of private to have cameras following me and taping my family life. But, I kind of had to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and say that, yeah, I am doing all these things. It would be interesting for people to see the comparison and the contrast between somebody who folks look at as a celebrity … and looking at somebody like Adam (a waiter and activist in the documentary), who’s just a “regular person” and see that he’s actually able to achieve a lot more than I have, as far as things real substantive.
Q: Do you have advice for people who want to help?
A: People ask me all the time, “What can I do?” I like to echo that question back at them, and say, I don’t know, what can you do? Because when people take stock in their lives and find out where they are connected, as far as church goes or their community, or their school, they’ll find that they haven’t really tapped their resources in what influence they wield. It’s usually more than they believe.
Q: What are you like, because your roles are almost polar opposites - serious and silly?
A: Aren’t we all like that, kind of? I’m pretty silly. I get painted as being pretty serious, because the kind of movies, the things that I become involved in, but one of the first things that I did when we got over to the camps was start playing. We all were playing together and juggling rocks, kicking the ball … . It’s like an instantaneous connection. That’s when it’s undeniable that we’re made of the same stuff at a basic level. We all cry. We all laugh. We all work on that basic human level. Connecting with that is another thing that sort of galvanized me about doing something. It’s not about an issue. It’s about these people. It’s about that spirit that you’re fighting for.
Q: You seem to immerse yourself into your roles. How do get into your characters?
A: I try to connect. I try to find out who that person is. I don’t think I always succeed, but that’s the goal. I always try to find the humanity in whatever no matter who I’m playing, so I guess that has a resonance to what I’m trying to do, vis-à-vis Darfur.
Marian Liu: 206-464-3825
or mliu@seattletimes.com