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Interview with Mos Def
HBO
So the character you play, Vivien Thomas. What do you enjoy about him?
MOS DEF
Well, he was a quiet craftsman. And he's a very humble guy, and extremely gifted. And I guess he appealed to me because he was passionate about what he loved and wanted to do, but he had an unusual way of expressing it. I think he was more of a doer than a talker.
HBO
What kind of research did you do to get into this?
MOS DEF
I read his book, and there's a documentary called "Partners of the Heart" that they'd done on his life. There are many people that I have spoken to, students and colleagues and people at Johns Hopkins; Dr. Levi Watkins and Dr. Haller, who's a consultant and himself a surgeon, who knew both Blalock and Dr. Thomas.
The remarkable thing about Vivien that I've been finding out is everyone has the same thing to say about him: he was easy going, soft spoken, and very proud, with a quiet resolve to him. And I was really intrigued and interested in that character.
He's very much a man, without being heavy handed or macho. Like a gentleman, really, in every sense of the word, he was very gentle and kind, and radical in his own way.
He was an unusual man, and I haven't heard anyone say one negative thing about him. He overcame a lot of hardships, he made huge sacrifices to do the work that he wanted to do.
He was a master carpenter, and as a teenager built his own home in Tennessee.
And without even saying it too much, he just did it whatever he had to do, even humbling yourself, and putting yourself in positions that were uncomfortable, beneath someone of his talent. And he did it with a great deal of grace and humility.
HBO
Can you just set the stage for the climate of this film, the setting?
MOS DEF
Well, a lot of things have changed. There's still quiet segregation in a lot of American life. In the climate he was living in, it was really the law of the land. I think nowadays, it's much more clandestine and not so easily detectable.
But in his day, coming up as a young man with a family, it was the law of the land; it was the letter of the law. And what appealed to me about Dr. Thomas is the way that he navigated and negotiated a relationship with himself in those environments.
You know, there's a way that the world feels about a man, and then there's a way that the man feels about himself. And I think Dr. Thomas had a very clear idea of who he was and what he wanted to do. And he just had this extraordinary focus, and he was a very sensitive and aware.
When he started to work in medicine, he was definitely an anomaly. And he stood out. He just negotiated a very different relationship with his surroundings that allowed him to stay focused and didn't disturb his aim.
HBO
What is the legacy that Vivien Thomas and Dr. Blalock left?
MOS DEF
Oh, God, well... just the first heart surgery in America, and then in the world, I believe. One of the more interesting facts about the procedure is that the tools that were needed to perform this very delicate type of surgery, Vivien designed and built himself.
He was so elemental to the procedure, and so quiet. I mean, not a vain man at all. I don't think he was interested in any sort of fanfare. It was work. I don't think that he ever imagined that he would be able to do something that had that impact. I think that he just wanted to be able to help people, and be useful.
And his desire to do that often put him in situations where people resented his proficiency, his skill, his talent, but it was something that no one could argue about.
I have a total new appreciation for surgeons and what Dr. Thomas and Dr. Blalock were able to do, because it was radical in every sense of the word. The heart was not to be approached on any surgical level at all.
HBO
How about working with Alan Rickman. We know him from so many different genres of films...
MOS DEF
Mm-hmm-
HBO
... from "Die Hard" to "Harry Potter." What's the experience been like?
MOS DEF
Well, we never met before. I was a huge fan of his work; a great, great actor. It's nice to be able to work with people that experienced because it helps you get better. So I'm just very, very happy and pleased to have worked that closely with him.
HBO
As an actor, what have you taken away from this experience? This is one of the bigger roles you've had.
MOS DEF
Well, certainly, this is the biggest role I've had in film to date. But, you know, I try not to think about that sort of thing. Somebody asked a really weird question at one of these press conferences, like... how does it feel carrying the picture? And I was like, I'm not in it by myself, you know, and I'm not even in it with just the people that are onscreen. There's everyone: camera crew and the lighting crew, the guys setting up the trucks on our locations.
I just want to do the best work I can, and hopefully that helps tell the story in the best way and stays true to the spirit and the dignity of the story and the people in it.
HBO
What do you hope audiences take away when they see this film?
MOS DEF
You know, that's for the audience to decide. I just want them to connect to the story. After we do it - kind of just got to let it go, and let it be what it's going to be. I think it's a great story, so the odds are, if I feel that way, someone else will feel that way too.
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HBO STORE
American Splendor is the award-winning story of underground comic book writer, Harvey Pekar. Video/DVD. |
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