Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for playing Detective Bunk Moreland in the television series The Wire.
On the island
Eight records
This particular song has that big four beat at the beginning... and it is a Thelonious Monk tune... played by a friend of mine from childhood, Wynton Marsalis.
It was my coming of age... All my boys became men when we heard this song.
Take My Hand, Precious LordFavourite
I would want to have that loving memory on this island.
Love to me is so multifaceted and painful... this song is sustenance to that sentimentality and love.
The blues idiom... not that you are troubled and you have no recourse, but that you can do something about it.
Appalachian Spring (7th movement)
New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
If I'm going to be alone on an island, I need that optimism and hope.
A Love Supreme, Part 1: Acknowledgement
This is what I believe spirit is, and that's love.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:05How do you keep the working trifecta of film, TV, and stage in balance?
I shoot for that trifecta. I want to do a play and do some television and film every year. I think diversity has been the key to me having longevity in my career. You don't want to be the theater snob that I was when I was coming out of Juilliard.
Presenter asks
2:34Was theatre your first love?
Yes, it was. I came home one summer between fifth and sixth grade. I guess I would have been around 11 years old. And I told my mother I didn't want to go to a summer day camp... she said, well, you know, the rule in this house is you got to get out and get a job. And you're too young to get a job. So I went to the University of New Orleans, and there was a theater camp, and I had a great time.
Presenter asks
8:38What do you remember about reading the script for The Wire for the first time, meeting Bunk for the first time?
I thought the script was amazing. I thought it was a real examination of the dysfunction in the corporate world, in the political world, in the criminal justice world, and a real criticism of the decline of the American empire, really... He captured all of that in just the simplest scenes of some kids who are explaining what chess is and how we're the pawns... And when I saw that, I realized I wanted to be a part of it. And it changed my life.
The keepsakes
The book
Albert Murray
I'm going to hang on to that because it's about African Americans, the contribution they made to the human diaspora, to Western civilization.
Presenter asks
15:37Did your father raise you and your brothers to be patriotic?
Yes. My father used to have a saying, 'You can't get lost in America.'... really it was emblematic of what he thought about the country like you can find your way in America in spite of everything... Somewhere in the middle of the eighteen fifties, my great grandfather was sold as a baby with his mother... And in spite of all of that, my father willingly went to fight for a country that on paper says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and every man is equal. That is how my father taught me about America.
Presenter asks
23:42You went to a predominantly white school when you were a bit older. How did that come about?
So it came about when it was the gifted and talented programme. So they had just started that with me, and I was bussed to a predominantly white school where the program was starting, and my father had the talk with me... He said these white boys are going to come at you in a group. They always do. It's always going to be in a group. He said now, you're gonna get your ass kicked, Wendell. But in the middle of that, you grab the biggest one of the leader. And while you're getting your ass kicked, you kick his ass.
Presenter asks
50:00What kind of impact has playing Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman had on you?
Uh it has affected me deeply. Doing this play, well, it's as difficult as anything I could have imagined. The play deals with a man's insecurities, fears, wondering if his best days are behind him... trying to find a way to give it purpose and finding redemption. It serves the purpose of what art should always be, the forum where we collectively come together and reflect on who we are and declare what our values are.
“That really was just like my shield. That was my armor.”
“You can't get lost in America.”
“I grabbed Chet and I wailed on him. And Chet got up and said, 'All right, that's enough.' And for the next two years, we all played, we were friends.”
“I did work with him. We had an audience of maybe two or three. But I got to work with Bob Fossey.”
“I will wash away whatever trauma has brought me to this predicament.”