"As I like to say, ativism is a verb, not a noun. You can call yourself an activist, but it's the details, the job, the work that you must do."
Director George C. Wolfe discusses the film's fearless portrayal of Bayard Rustin, intersectionality, and the importance of passing knowledge to future generations to build lasting legacies.
Director George C. Wolfe discusses the film's fearless portrayal of Bayard Rustin, intersectionality, and the importance of passing knowledge to future generations to build lasting legacies.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00 It's an honor to meet you today. I'm so excited to chat about the film.
00:04 I just wanted to start off by congratulating you.
00:07 I watched it and it really, really is going to speak volumes to so many audiences.
00:11 Oh good.
00:12 So it fearlessly portrays Rustin and his story towards the march,
00:16 but it also just shows the intimate parts of his life and his relationships with Elias.
00:21 So what influenced you to really want to draw so much attention to that aspect of his life to show audiences?
00:27 It's who he was. It's like, you know, it would be wonderful if we could isolate,
00:36 if we're focused on a job that we have to do and everything, every other corner of our life obeys.
00:43 But that doesn't, it's not what's happening. You know what I mean?
00:46 You know, if you're working, you have relationships, you have a family, you have responsibilities and things collide.
00:54 And that's part, I think, of the wonder and the potency of him is that the purity of his focus and that this happened,
01:04 and he organized this march in eight weeks and also trying to create dynamics that were,
01:10 and at the same time, he's also being challenged and under attack by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI
01:17 and the Kennedy brothers don't want this to happen. And at the same time, it's fictionalized.
01:22 He's starting a relationship with the person who is married.
01:26 And then he has a relationship with an ex who is helping to organize the march.
01:32 And it's the chaos of one's life. And how does one maintain one's focus, one's drive,
01:38 one's determination and one's clarity in the middle of all of that?
01:43 It's that's who we are. That's who we are. And I think it humanizes him.
01:48 I think it looks like us. I think it looks more like us.
01:51 So that therefore, hopefully we can see him and see not this marble statue,
01:56 but a human being endeavoring to do great and extraordinary things.
02:01 Absolutely. And I love what you said, just talking about all of the different components that make him up as a human being.
02:06 The movie also really focuses on intersectionality, talking about his queerness and his blackness,
02:11 and as well as others in the movie, like Anna Hedgman's marginalization as a black woman.
02:16 What do you hope people take away from this film when it comes to intersectionality?
02:20 Well, it's one of the things that I think is really fascinating and very moving.
02:27 I think it was about eight, nine years ago that I saw extensive footage of the march.
02:33 And I saw all these different faces from all over the country converging on Washington, D.C.,
02:39 which is very important to remember in 1963 was a segregated city.
02:45 The lunch counter scene at the very beginning was filmed at a lunch counter in Washington, D.C.,
02:53 and someone who knew it said this was segregated in 1963.
02:59 So you had all these people coming together from all over the country because they felt a responsibility.
03:06 They understood, whether they understood it intellectually or they understood it emotionally,
03:12 that it needn't look like you to be about you.
03:16 And that sense of grace and that sense of sensitivity and availability is very, very important.
03:24 And I think something that we need to reinvest in every single day of our lives.
03:28 Absolutely. And my last question I just wanted to ask,
03:31 was there a particular moment in Rustin's life that you were really excited to see represented in the film?
03:36 Oh, that's an interesting question.
03:40 Just I was very intrigued to see the scenes or to manifest the scenes where he's challenging and engaging his young team,
03:53 pushing them to dig deeper, to be smarter, to think more, to not stop each other's ideas.
04:01 And I was really excited about him instructing them because I think it's very important,
04:08 as I like to say, activism is a verb, not a noun.
04:12 You can call yourself an activist, but it's the details, the job, the work that you must do.
04:17 And I think that begins to embody his understanding of that and passing that information on to another generation,
04:25 passing on what he knows so that therefore those who can absorb it and do it and then pass that on and pass that on.
04:32 And that's how legacies are built.
04:33 Absolutely. Those are very strong scenes. Well, congratulations.
04:36 Thank you very much.