On location, the Oscar nominee offers suggestions that always are taken seriously, often implemented. It was a study in what is and what will be, watching the actor last summer on the set of "Talk to Me," a period drama inspired by the rise of D.C radio-TV personality Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene.
Those who have worked with Cheadle believe it's just a matter of time before he joins the ranks of fine actors who direct fine films. Maybe it's the emotional heft of the projects to which Cheadle is drawn: "Hotel Rwanda" and "Reign Over Me." Or perhaps it's the behind-the-camera roles he's begun taking on.
He was a Watch a video of the real Petey Greene and see the right way to eat a watermelon. producer on "Crash." He's the executive producer of "Talk to Me.
" Or maybe it's just the way he pays heed to each scene. "Don Cheadle is a great example of someone who's very smart, dedicated to bringing stories to the screen with great leads and great packages, and it's paying off," said film executive Stephanie Allain last fall when asked about the artistic strides of being made by African-American filmmakers and actors. For Cheadle, 42, it's about the joy of "putting stuff together.
" I love seeing all these different elements come together greater, different than what you imagined them to be," the actor said one morning, still wearing the mini-'fro and sideburns of his character. "I like all aspects of the creative process." Passion for filmmaking Cheadle's passion for the filmmaking process, as well as his deep focus as a performer, was as sharp and impressive as his character's slick brown boots during the waning days of "The Talk to Me" shoot.
Light streamed through the windows of a room in Toronto's Union Station, dubbed the Video Village because of its jumble of monitors and rows of canvas directors chairs. Cheadle stood before a monitor with co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Kasi Lemmons, eyeing a scene just shot on the other side of the wall. Greene and radio producer Dewey Hughes (Ejiofor) have walked into the offices of WOL-AM, an R B station owned by E.
G. Strewn on the floor,are the clothes Petey wasn't wearing when he pounded on Dewey's door the night before. Henson) had kicked Petey out.
Vernell's payback leads to a confrontation between Greene and another disc jockey, Nighthawk, portrayed by Cedric the Entertainer. After conferring by the monitor, the director and her leading men headed back into the station's avocado green offices. There, the absurdly amusing confrontation morphs into something abjectly, historically wrenching.
Thanks to Cheadle's deep understanding of Greene's fears, as well as his courage, what comes next provides "Talk to Me" with one of the most powerful mood shifts in the film. "Talk to me is fantastic," Allain said last fall after seeing an early cut of Lemmons' film. The producer of Craig Brewer's Southern melodramas ("Black Snake Moan" and "Hustle Flow") then offered a 2008 Oscar prediction.
"Don will be nominated. Chiwetel will be nominated. Kasi will be nominated.
" Oscar's either/or quandaries aside, Cheadle wants the film, set mostly in the politically and racially charged '60s and '70s, to entertain. "People will get from it what they get from it," he said of the themes of black empowerment and class divisions. "Clearly it touches on very powerful issues and a very powerful moment in the history of our country.
" An ex-convict with a gift for gab and exquisite taste in tunes, Greene became a force in Washington, D.C., as did his producer Dewey Hughes.
A father of the "tell it like it is" school of talk-the-talk radio, Greene eventually had a TV program called "Petey Greene's Washington." was in flames after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Greene, not typically a cooler head, helped quell the urban unrest.
A recovering addict and a less-than-recovered alcoholic, Greene was a complicated character to love. In 1984, when he died of cancer at the age of 53, his service was one of the most attended of any nonelected official in Washington. On location, the Oscar nominee offers suggestions that always are taken seriously, often implemented.
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