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LifestyleTranscript
00:00The lessons I've learned in my own life that I've found most valuable when it comes to
00:09shaping my characters, be honest.
00:12One of my first acting teachers in high school, he would always say in class, to be honest
00:19is to tell the truth.
00:20If you don't believe what you're saying, it's not the truth.
00:23So be honest.
00:24Like, the only thing that comes out of a lie is heartache and regret.
00:27So just tell the truth and let the person across from you deal with it.
00:31I try to do that all the time and use those lines, making them real and telling the truth
00:37to the person across from me.
00:41I'm Anthony Mackie, and this is my Essence digital cover.
00:54When I look back on my career, the most defining moment personally is actually very early on.
01:03One of my first jobs was Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, who took
01:10my role.
01:11I auditioned for that role.
01:14Growing up in my house, it was like Martin Luther King, Jesus, you know, Bruce Lee and
01:19Clint Eastwood, the pinnacle tree of man, you know, and Malcolm X.
01:24When I did Million Dollar Baby, I bought the posters for the Man With No Name trilogy.
01:30And I had them sign them for my dad, framed them, brought them home.
01:35And you know, at the end of a work day, my dad would have all of his workers come around
01:38and they would sit around the shop on a Friday and have beers.
01:40And I'd never had a beer with my dad.
01:42My dad had never, my dad, anybody, you know, who knew my dad, my dad was the Anheuser-Busch
01:47of New Orleans.
01:49And when I gave my dad his posters and my dad looked at me and was like, you know Clint
01:55Eastwood?
01:56I said, yeah, I did a movie with him, I got him to sign the posters.
02:01And he goes in the cooler and he gave me a beer.
02:05He said, you all right, boy.
02:10I would like for my work to inspire young actors and storytellers in the way of training.
02:15My first day in New York, my very first day, before I started Juilliard, when my brother
02:21brought me up here, I was sitting down with my brother at a cafe and Wynton Marsalis walked
02:26past us.
02:27And you know, I jump up, I run over to Wynton, I'm like, Wynton, I'm a homeboy, bro, like
02:32I'm from the seventh world.
02:33I went to NOCA.
02:34He pulled out a pen and as classy as Wynton Marsalis always is, you know, he cool, write
02:40down his number and give me the paper.
02:42He goes, look homeboy, you need anything, you let me know.
02:45So I called Wynton a few days later and we went over to the basketball courts on 65th
02:51Street and he proceeded to bust my ass in basketball, which was outstanding.
02:56But he told me something very important that I've always held true.
03:00He said to be is to study.
03:02He said when he left New Orleans, he could play jazz better than anybody.
03:07He could play second line street music better than anybody.
03:10But coming to Juilliard gave him the opportunity to learn so many different composers and so
03:16many different types of music that no matter what you hit him with, you could do it.
03:20Your training is the platform from which you jump off to create characters.
03:26And I've always rocked with that.
03:28And going to Juilliard taught me so much.
03:31I mean, reading so many different writers and, you know, listening to Tupac as well
03:36as Stravinsky, like, you know, listening to Chopin as well as, you know, Diggable Planets.
03:42When you learn your art form and your expressive status, it really gives you the freedom to
03:48do whatever you want.
03:49So you can't be pigeonholed.
03:51You know, you can't be put in a place where you can only play gangsters or you can only
03:55play the good guy or you can only play the love interest.
03:59Like you can do whatever you want to do.
04:01And I think that comes with training and discipline.
04:04When young actors look at me, I want them to know I trained 13 years hardcore.
04:10I went to boarding school and gave up my last two years of high school.
04:15I went to Juilliard and gave up my entire college experience and everything I thought
04:20college would be for that one opportunity to play Tupac in Up Against the Wind off-Broadway.
04:27And that comes with training because after playing Tupac, I came back and I played Martin
04:31Luther King.
04:33And not too many people can do that.
04:35Not too many people can do off-Broadway, Broadway, independent theater, as well as major motion
04:41pictures.
04:42And all of that comes with training.
04:43All of that started at NOCA from North Carolina to Juilliard.
04:49A personal mantra that's always guided me was something my brother told me.
04:54My brothers, both of them, have always been a huge influence in my life.
04:59I am the living example of a village raising a knucklehead.
05:03And my brother would always tell me, in the race of life, when you find out you're behind,
05:11you have two options.
05:12You can run faster or quit.
05:16And our daddy didn't raise quitters.
05:18When he told me that, it was like the Rocky music came on.
05:22And every time I have something that I have to face or something that I feel is going
05:26to be difficult, I think about that.
05:28And I think about what my grandfather went through being a sharecropper.
05:33I think about what my dad went through dropping out of school in eighth grade to work with
05:38my grandfather and becoming a successful businessman and roofer.
05:42What my brother went through when he went to law school at USL and what my other brother
05:46went through when he got his Ph.D. at Georgia Tech.
05:49And that didn't leave much room for error and failure, you know.
05:55So I decided to run faster.