* Interview sur blackfilm.com par Shelby Jones(mai 2001)
* Interview sur bet.com par James Hill(13 novembre 2003)
* Interview sur Africana.com par Quibian Salazar-Moreno(2 mars 2004)
Interview sur blackfilm.com par Shelby Jones(mai 2001)
ACTORS MAKING THE GRADE : Hill Harper is Fearless in the Active State of Being
If you have seen his work in LOVING JEZEBEL, HE GOT GAME or THE NEPHEW, then you know Hill is thorough at his craft.
For those of you that have not seen him perform, don’t miss him in THE VISIT from Urbanworld Films.
I had the pleasure of zipping some questions to Mr. Harper. Here is a glimpse of the young man’s mind. Enjoy.
* What is your bliss?
Fearlessness in the active state of being
* What do you hate about politics?
Hypocritical, condescending, cavalier--conservatives
* Which historical figure do you identify with?
Muhammad Ali
* Which living person do you most admire?
Nelson Mandela
* Football or basketball?
Football
* Shell-top Adidas or Nike's?
Shell-top Adidas
* Do you believe in romance?
Absolutely
* Jazz, funk, alternative or hip-hop?
Jazz
* What problem facing the African-American community do you think Needs to be solved immediately?
Public School education
* If you could see any musical performer dead or alive, who would it be?
Bob Marley
* What do you like most about your friends?
Honesty & intelligence
* Eric Clapton or BB King?
BB King
* Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yes
* If you were not an actor, what would you do for a living?
President of the United States
* If you were suddenly elected President of the United States, what would be your first executive order?
Raise public school teacher's salary to $200,000 per year
* Who would win in a fight between Ali & Mike Tyson?
Ali! No doubt!!
* What is your favorite film of all time?
Purple rain
* What is your most favorite line from the Godfather trilogy?
Wet my beak
* Have you ever been dogged?
Yes
* If you could play any character in the history of the world, who would it be?
Nelson Mandela
Interview sur bet.com par James Hill(13 novembre 2003)
You can tell how happy Hill Harper is just listening to him on the phone. The actor is happy because his new show,
"The Handler," on CBS, is doing quite well in the ratings, and what's more he's completely geeked about his role as Darnell, an
FBI agent. But Harper could be happier, especially considering the state of Black TV and how Black actors are treated.
He discussed this and more in our brief Q&A. See what he had to say about playing a White guy, his eye-opening conversation
with Samuel L. Jackson and why Black actors should consider TV over film.
BET.com:So how's the new show going?
Hill Harper: It's doing very well. Last year, NBC ruled Friday night with "Law & Order: SVU" and it cleaned house. Then they moved it to Tuesday night and put in
"Boomtown." Our show killed Boomtown, so they got rid of it, and now they're bringing "Law & Order" back. We didn't want that. It's going to be a fight, but we'll battle it
out.
.com: You are mostly known for doing film, what made you decide to come to TV?
Harper:Because you can reach so many people. You don't realize how much wider an audience you hit with TV than film. On a weekly basis "Friends" gets 30 million
viewers. Our show gets about 12 million. That's a blockbuster audience every week. That's important for Black actors to remember, because we aren't considered valuable
commodities. We're considered exchangeable. We're the "Black guy."
I mean, there are exceptions. Like once I had a conversation with Samuel Jackson and told him I admired him for all his smart role choices. He said, "I don't choose my
roles. I take what Denzel turns down." Hollywood goes with the Black guy they can get. They don't feel that we bring anything specific but our Blackness. TV lets you
present yourself to a wider audience all the time.
.com: So what's so special about this role?
Harper:Basically, I'm playing the younger White boy. I'm the second guy in command. Unlike most shows, the Black guy is not way down the food chain. I'm a brothe
r who gets to go deep undercover every week, so that let's me play a different character every week. New accents, new walks, new wardrobe. It's so much fun. It's like a
mixture of "Law and Order," "CSI" and "Mission Impossible." For me as an actor, this is by far the most fun I've had on TV.
And we also have a Black woman, Tanya Wright, who plays Marcy on the show. The producer wants the show to be accurate. This is what an FBI street teams look like,
you know. I mean we're not trying to infiltrate surf camps. I want us to rally around this show seeing as it's 40% Black. They're telling us that no one wants to see our
stories but us. It's time to stop having the networks ghettoize us.
.com: How do you feel about how Black folks are doing in the new fall season?
Harper:I've always been a "glass-is-half-full" cat. Unfortunately, where we have the lack of representation is in the offices where decisions are made. You end up with
shows that aren't considered as high-quality. It's all about marketing muscle and audience support. If the audiences speak, the show will stay on. If the audience speaks,
it'll stay around. Go to CBS.com and write about the show. Give feedback; tell them you're a fan. Believe me; they take that stuff seriously. Each little letter makes a
difference.
You always have to ask, "Are the networks presenting Black shows in a way that will keep them on?" Over the summer, "Boomtown" was rerun on NBC and TBS. That's
a huge amount of resources to keep a show running. It was seen as a classy show. How come Black shows aren't promoted like that? The only possible exception is
"Bernie Mac." But most of the networks don't do it that way. They don't care about us.
.com: What films should we expect to see you in soon?
Harper:I have two movies next year, both smaller more independent type films. First is "Love, Sex and Eating the Bones," which won best Canadian film in Toronto.
The other is "American Brown," which was shot in Brooklyn. But I want to do more studio films. They have a wider reach and scope.
Interview sur Africana.com par Quibian Salazar-Moreno(2 mars 2004)
He's often recognized from feature films or television, but if he hadn't followed his heart Hill Harper might be more recognizable as a figure in the courtroom.
College students make a million and a half life-altering decisions before they walk across that stage, but for some of them the hardest choice will come when class is out.
After four or more years of studying they'll be left wondering if they should bank on the security of a 9 to 5 or take that leap of faith and follow their heart to its calling.
We're talking about really trying to change the industry and if I'm a part of it I'm going to bust my ass to try to change it for the better.
Hill Harper — who graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, then picked up degrees from Harvard's Law School and Kennedy School of Government — is an
actor. Suddenly, security is looking like the less attractive of the two choices.
Most movie fans recognize Harper as Xavier, the kid with the camera in the Million Man March-inspired Get on the Bus, or Booger, Jesus' right hand man in Spike Lee's
basketball flick He Got Game. But his small screen credits include The Sopranos, Soul Food, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, ER and most recently a co-starring role
alongside former Soprano bad guy Joe Pantoliano on the CBS drama The Handler.
Harper's also starring in a couple of films coming out this year, playing a porn addict in Love, Sex and Eating the Bones and a Catholic priest in America Brown. He talked
with us about his career, his current and upcoming projects and the state of Hollywood for black actors.
Quibian: You've got degrees from Brown, Harvard Law and the Kennedy School of Government. Why are you a member of a cast and not a firm?
Hill: What happened was when I went to college, I played football at Brown and I was looking for a class that met with my football schedule. I'd always thought about acting
and I've always loved it and I had performed when I was younger at different times — done some poetry stuff and some commercials and things — but never really thought
about it as a career.
Then I took this acting class, "Voice for The Actor: Shakespeare," and it was a Shakespeare class where you work on voice, speech and diction, and I said, this might
be interesting. So I went in and took the class and I just fell in love with it. I really do believe that it was an example of divine intervention, because what I was meant to
do was brought to me without me even walking into the class saying, "Oh yeah, I'm going to see if I can be an actor," My mind wasn't even like that. But that's how my life has turned out and I think that's how God and divinity presents itself often times, in ways that we don't expect it.
Quibian: Your screen time, in movies and on television, has steadily increased. What was the turning point?
Hill: I think the turning point for me was really Spike Lee hiring me to do Get on the Bus. The reason I got He Got Game was because he offered that to me after I did Get
on the Bus. Get on the Bus, to me, was such an important film content-wise, and all the great actors that were in it and also the character I played. Up until Get on the
Bus Spike was appearing in his movies and Get on the Bus was one of the first movies where he didn't appear. I basically played the character that he probably would
have played if he was young enough to still play it — you know, the director of the documentary of the bus trip. It was big for me. It's not easy to get a major studio film
without a lot of star power or name value. So it was a big break for me. Spike is known to hire people based on their talent — the studio can say that this person is hot or that person is hot, but Spike is not that type of guy.
Quibian: You now play Darnell on the CBS drama The Handler. How is that going?
Hill: The Handler is great for me because I get to play so many different characters week in and week out, because Darnell is a deep-cover operative. Joey Pantoliano is
our handler and he sets up scenarios for us to go undercover and bust the bad guys. So it's been great for me to do, and I've had a great time doing it. What's wonderful
for me as an actor is that every episode I'm a different character, my hairstyles change, my looks change and the wardrobe changes. It's just great and it's been wonderful
for me to get nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series from the International Press Association.
Quibian: You're pumping out a couple of films this year. But do you really play a porn addict in Love, Sex and Eating the Bones?
Hill: Right, it won Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto Film Festival. But yeah, I'm a porn addict. It's a great film, a romantic comedy written by the brother David
Sutherland, who's fantastic. He's a great young Canadian filmmaker. We just had a great time doing it. It's about love and addiction and fear. It's a great movie and it's
also going to play the Palm Springs Film Festival and it's going to open in Canada on March 5, I think.
Quibian: So you're a porn addict in Love, Sex and Eating the Bones and a priest in America Brown? That's way at the other end of the spectrum, wouldn't you say?
Hill: Yeah, I play a priest, a Catholic priest who's struggling with his commitments. It's really a wonderful role. I got to do a ton of research with all these fantastic priests
and to learn about the character and it was just great to do and I'm really proud of that film. It will probably premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. So it's going to
start there and make its way here.
Quibian: Seems like a world of opportunity out there. Have things changed for black actors in Hollywood in the last few years?
Hill: The answer really is yes and no. We have more shows with African American actors on them, which is a good thing. But I still think there's a "ghetto-ization" that
goes on and most of those shows are all black. I think it might be even more than "ghetto-ization," I would say a racial segregation is what we have on television now.
We have this thing where Friends is set in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in all of the world, and literally you see one or two black characters on that
show ever, one or two Latin characters on that show ever, one or two Asians, Native Americans, whoever. The point is, set that show in Seattle, because that is not
an accurate representation of New York City in my mind.
But then again you have these shows that are all black and basically the industry is saying, do white people want to see black stories? That's the problem, we really
have to bust through that type of thinking if we're really going to make some changes. Everybody wants to see everybody's stories. There's a big myth in Hollywood
right now that African American films don't play overseas. It's ridiculous, it's just not true. They don't promote overseas, so it doesn't play overseas and it's a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The point is we have to bust through many of these myths.
People are people, and people want to see good stories. They want to be entertained. [Hollywood] thinks Will Smith is a phenomenon and that white people want to
see Will Smith. But that doesn't matter. People want to see good entertaining movies. It's not about the race of the actor, it's about the quality of the entertainment that
they're providing and that's what we have to start re-enforcing. Eminem is a really good rapper. I personally don't like him that much, but I can't deny the fact that he's a
really good rapper. If he was black, green purple, whatever, he'd still be a smooth rapper. He doesn't sell records because he's white, he sells records because he says
stuff that people want to hear over beats that people want to hear.
Quibian: Could you see yourself bringing some of these good stories to the screen as perhaps a writer or director?
Hill: I'm writing and I plan on directing and writing. It's just tough, because acting is my focus and my love, it is what I do and who I am, so I commit my time to that. We're
talking about really trying to change the industry and if I'm a part of it I'm going to bust my ass to try to change it for the better. And that's what I'm doing on all fronts. I've
got to put my money, my time, my energy and my intellect all where my mouth is. And that's what I'm going to do. We're talking about world domination… I'm joking.
