Charles S. Dutton and Collins Pennie (MGM) |
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Charles S. Dutton is the sort of actor who elevates every production he joins, whether award-winning plays such as August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson" or inspirational sports movies such as " The Express." So it's not surprising that Dutton is the first thing MGM wanted the news media to see and hear in the 20-minute "sizzle reel" the studio put together to promote the remake of its 1980 hit "Fame."
Once again, we're in the audition rooms of New York City's School of the Performing Arts. But this time Dutton, as an acting teacher, is calling the shots with calm authority.
"We have seen 150 students today, and they all swear they have a special gift to offer this school," Dutton tells an appealing, trembling teenage girl. "Do you have a special gift?" To another, more robust young woman, he laughs and says, "You're fearless!" "Some say annoying," she replies. "You know, it's possible to be both," says Dutton, beaming back. (Regrettably, neither scene is in the ragtag finished movie.)
Cynics might fear that Dutton, who built his reputation with a string of Wilson plays and groundbreaking TV series like "The Corner" (which he directed) and "Roc," would make this film as a career move to bring him younger fans and a wider audience. But on the phone from his Howard County farm, Dutton says he takes on only films that "move" him in some way.
"The fun in this film," he says, "was the chance to put on screen the motivational aspect of teaching acting." Asked whether his scenes resembled moments from his career and life, he laughs and says, "I couldn't get around that fact if I tried or wanted to."
As Dutton tells the story in a one-man show, "From Jail to Yale," which he performs at fundraising events and benefits (including one last Saturday night at Howard County Community College, to support the Center for Business Inclusion and Diversity's Top 100 MBE Awards Program), acting gave his life meaning. You might even say acting gave him the chance to have a life.
He was serving time in a Maryland prison for manslaughter when he read Douglas Turner Ward's "A Day of Absence" - a satiric play depicting what would happen in a Southern town circa 1965 if all its blacks didn't show up one day - and decided he had to act in it and stage it. The experience transformed him. He told his pals he wouldn't be brawling with other convicts or picking fights with guards. He'd found his source of truth and passion, and a goal to pursue once he left prison. But did others see his situation the way he did?
"Diane Weaver was the first person who saw that I had talent," Dutton says. "She sort of supervised the [prison] drama group after I started it - she supervised it and taught the acting class and wasn't timid about it, either."
Playing the drama coach in "Fame" allowed him to pay tribute, sometimes humorously, to her and his more celebrated mentors, most notably Paul Berman from Towson University and Earle Gister and Lloyd Richards at the Yale School of Drama. "All the acting teachers I ever had," he said, "were halfway between drill sergeants and tyrants."
When Dutton accepted the part in "Fame," he hoped he could concentrate on qualities not reflected in the title.
"Fame and fortune are icing on the cake: An artist should go into something with a sense of purpose, so that somehow through the work you can advance civilization."
What he hopes to convey to the young actors he tutors in "Fame" as well as the ones he mentors in real life, is that "an artist has got to be fearless, absolutely fearless, whether you're a dancer making a leap or a singer trying to hit that very difficult high note. You live dangerously as an artist - that's what I was taught and what I wanted to convey in my character."
Dutton says it's become harder in recent years to convince young people of the sweat and seriousness that should go into acting. Today, "everyone thinks they can do it - every rapper, singer or sports personality. 'Oh, I can be in that movie. Oh, I can act.' "
What he wants the kids in and out of "Fame" to know is that "acting is like digging ditches for a living - it's hard work. And for the serious block of students, it's a craft" - a craft Dutton feels they can best learn in the theater, not the movie studio.
"When you're waiting to go on stage, you want to get out there and do battle. As an artist, you tell yourself - I still do to this day, before I go on - I'm going to change the life of someone in that audience. Someone sitting in front of me tonight is going to be changed in heart and mind. ...You don't constantly think of that task when you are doing it, but you know it. And you pour an ounce of your internal essence out on the floor of that stage every night - and somehow that translates into an experience for the audience. I've been lucky to talk with people 15 years after they've seen me in a play - maybe 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' or 'The Piano Lesson' - and they'll say that what they saw surprised them or shook them or somehow poked them in the eyes."
Dutton continues, "The stage is the only place where the actor controls the comedy or the drama; it's the only place where the medium is the actor. I think to remain on the stage as an artist you have to be in love with acting."
Performing for the camera calls for an ability to turn intensity on and off and meet challenging technical demands. But the stage provides actors with opportunities to practice "an organic, immediate and vibrant art. And all the responsibility is on you. You may have a case of the flu, but your character can't have a case of the flu. You may feel depressed, but your character needs to have a zest for life. In a movie, if you're not feeling good, you can lie down in your trailer."
Dutton says he's "fallen out of love with acting," at least in that urgent and incessant way. What motivates him now is the potency of material he can bring to life as an actor or director.
"You turn down more stuff than you do, and you make sure the stuff you do is stuff that moves you." Dutton compares the demands of directing to "washing a battleship with a Q-tip," but he enjoys "being able to tell a story and say something," and resists typecasting.
He recently directed and acted in a low-budget independent production called "The Obama Effect." It aims to flesh out, with comedy, the rifts that emerged among white, black and Latino Americans during the 2008 presidential campaign - and the hoped-for return of civility after the general election. (Dutton acknowledges that he didn't know when he was filming it how topical it would still seem today.) As an actor in big-studio films, he follows "Fame" with "Legion," a sci-fi/fantasy spectacle that he thinks will be "a lot of fun. The only way I can describe it is a mixture of 'The Terminator,' 'The Exorcist' and 'The Night of the Living Dead.' "
First, though, audiences will get to judge for themselves whether Dutton has managed to pour a stiff dose of reality into "Fame."
Once again, we're in the audition rooms of New York City's School of the Performing Arts. But this time Dutton, as an acting teacher, is calling the shots with calm authority.
"We have seen 150 students today, and they all swear they have a special gift to offer this school," Dutton tells an appealing, trembling teenage girl. "Do you have a special gift?" To another, more robust young woman, he laughs and says, "You're fearless!" "Some say annoying," she replies. "You know, it's possible to be both," says Dutton, beaming back. (Regrettably, neither scene is in the ragtag finished movie.)
Cynics might fear that Dutton, who built his reputation with a string of Wilson plays and groundbreaking TV series like "The Corner" (which he directed) and "Roc," would make this film as a career move to bring him younger fans and a wider audience. But on the phone from his Howard County farm, Dutton says he takes on only films that "move" him in some way.
"The fun in this film," he says, "was the chance to put on screen the motivational aspect of teaching acting." Asked whether his scenes resembled moments from his career and life, he laughs and says, "I couldn't get around that fact if I tried or wanted to."
As Dutton tells the story in a one-man show, "From Jail to Yale," which he performs at fundraising events and benefits (including one last Saturday night at Howard County Community College, to support the Center for Business Inclusion and Diversity's Top 100 MBE Awards Program), acting gave his life meaning. You might even say acting gave him the chance to have a life.
He was serving time in a Maryland prison for manslaughter when he read Douglas Turner Ward's "A Day of Absence" - a satiric play depicting what would happen in a Southern town circa 1965 if all its blacks didn't show up one day - and decided he had to act in it and stage it. The experience transformed him. He told his pals he wouldn't be brawling with other convicts or picking fights with guards. He'd found his source of truth and passion, and a goal to pursue once he left prison. But did others see his situation the way he did?
"Diane Weaver was the first person who saw that I had talent," Dutton says. "She sort of supervised the [prison] drama group after I started it - she supervised it and taught the acting class and wasn't timid about it, either."
Playing the drama coach in "Fame" allowed him to pay tribute, sometimes humorously, to her and his more celebrated mentors, most notably Paul Berman from Towson University and Earle Gister and Lloyd Richards at the Yale School of Drama. "All the acting teachers I ever had," he said, "were halfway between drill sergeants and tyrants."
When Dutton accepted the part in "Fame," he hoped he could concentrate on qualities not reflected in the title.
"Fame and fortune are icing on the cake: An artist should go into something with a sense of purpose, so that somehow through the work you can advance civilization."
What he hopes to convey to the young actors he tutors in "Fame" as well as the ones he mentors in real life, is that "an artist has got to be fearless, absolutely fearless, whether you're a dancer making a leap or a singer trying to hit that very difficult high note. You live dangerously as an artist - that's what I was taught and what I wanted to convey in my character."
Dutton says it's become harder in recent years to convince young people of the sweat and seriousness that should go into acting. Today, "everyone thinks they can do it - every rapper, singer or sports personality. 'Oh, I can be in that movie. Oh, I can act.' "
What he wants the kids in and out of "Fame" to know is that "acting is like digging ditches for a living - it's hard work. And for the serious block of students, it's a craft" - a craft Dutton feels they can best learn in the theater, not the movie studio.
"When you're waiting to go on stage, you want to get out there and do battle. As an artist, you tell yourself - I still do to this day, before I go on - I'm going to change the life of someone in that audience. Someone sitting in front of me tonight is going to be changed in heart and mind. ...You don't constantly think of that task when you are doing it, but you know it. And you pour an ounce of your internal essence out on the floor of that stage every night - and somehow that translates into an experience for the audience. I've been lucky to talk with people 15 years after they've seen me in a play - maybe 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' or 'The Piano Lesson' - and they'll say that what they saw surprised them or shook them or somehow poked them in the eyes."
Dutton continues, "The stage is the only place where the actor controls the comedy or the drama; it's the only place where the medium is the actor. I think to remain on the stage as an artist you have to be in love with acting."
Performing for the camera calls for an ability to turn intensity on and off and meet challenging technical demands. But the stage provides actors with opportunities to practice "an organic, immediate and vibrant art. And all the responsibility is on you. You may have a case of the flu, but your character can't have a case of the flu. You may feel depressed, but your character needs to have a zest for life. In a movie, if you're not feeling good, you can lie down in your trailer."
Dutton says he's "fallen out of love with acting," at least in that urgent and incessant way. What motivates him now is the potency of material he can bring to life as an actor or director.
"You turn down more stuff than you do, and you make sure the stuff you do is stuff that moves you." Dutton compares the demands of directing to "washing a battleship with a Q-tip," but he enjoys "being able to tell a story and say something," and resists typecasting.
He recently directed and acted in a low-budget independent production called "The Obama Effect." It aims to flesh out, with comedy, the rifts that emerged among white, black and Latino Americans during the 2008 presidential campaign - and the hoped-for return of civility after the general election. (Dutton acknowledges that he didn't know when he was filming it how topical it would still seem today.) As an actor in big-studio films, he follows "Fame" with "Legion," a sci-fi/fantasy spectacle that he thinks will be "a lot of fun. The only way I can describe it is a mixture of 'The Terminator,' 'The Exorcist' and 'The Night of the Living Dead.' "
First, though, audiences will get to judge for themselves whether Dutton has managed to pour a stiff dose of reality into "Fame."
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