August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Piano Lesson is about a conflict in a Black family over whether to keep an exquisite heirloom piano — or to sell it to buy the land their family was enslaved on. Denzel Washington's son Malcolm directed the new film adaptation for Netflix, and his brother John David stars as Boy Willie. Tonya Mosley talks with the brothers about collaborating as a family on the project.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the story behind 'The Piano Lesson'?
John David.
Thrives from it. Well, I'm still kind of living. I don't know. You're one bad performer. You say it like that. I mean, a lot of this felt like life and death for me. I don't mean to get too dramatic. But this project, the play specifically, I knew on the other side of this, I'm going to find out about myself. And I did have these real conversations with myself.
And my publicist that if this if this if I fall, I don't know if I get back up from this. I did feel like, well, because of how powerful and how important and how how we hold August Wilson's words and his artistry and being on the boards, as they call it on Broadway. You know, there's a lot more respect.
There's a different kind of respect you get from your peers, from the community at large that are in the artistry if you can actually act. I've said this before. I liken it to a rapper. I've been able to work with the Dr. Dre's and the Pharrell's and, you know, the Timberlands of the world as producers. But, like, can you actually rap? Do you have bars?
And that's what I needed to find out for myself. And so I felt a lot of pressure in that way.
How do you make yourself comfortable with rejection?
Uh, through repetition. I've had plenty of experiences with rejection. I'm very familiar with rejection. I've almost gotten comfortable to the point of where it becomes almost like an impervious feeling. And so my whole life, we're talking about, you know, our L.A. upbringing and stuff. Like, it does feel that... I felt like I might not have been able to be seen.
I got rejected in my real personality sometimes. So I felt like I could hide it or I can filter that through those feelings, through sport, through activity to enact my resentment that build up for how I was, you know, and my interactions. So rejection is a byproduct of pursuing what you love and what you love doing.
I want to slow that down a little bit, that resentment that you're talking about. What do you mean when you say that?
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Chapter 2: How did the Washington brothers collaborate on this film?
The line goes along like along the lines of let's talk about what this case is really all about. The general public's hatred, our loathing, our fear of homosexuals. And that hatred and that fear led to a particular firing of my client, Andrew Beckett. And he talked about that scene because it's such a powerful monologue in that moment.
And then, you know, the moment that happened, he said he did a cartwheel first before he approached the bench. And what was so interesting about that story is Jonathan Demme didn't judge him. He didn't question him. He said, oh, that was interesting. And then they had a laugh afterwards because Pops was saying he just wanted to know.
How like that, if you can trust him, that he just that he has freedom to do stuff. He's obviously not going to do a cartwheel. But like, do you trust me? And I thought that was so interesting because in that film, Jonathan Demme and he are having the same language, that character. I could feel the trust in the edits and in the way he was captured in that film.
And that story sort of depicted the feeling that I get from watching my dad in that film. So I thought that was a cool story that that pop shared with me some insight.
That is a cool story. And I'm wondering how it informs your acting, your process when you are on set with others and like you're building that trust too, you know?
Well, I don't think I'll ever need a cartwheel to test the parameters of our trust.
You do some questionable things. You be barking.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. That is true.
What's the barking about? He just starts barking like crazy right before we start shooting. Like, right. Sound up. Camera roll.
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