You often hear the Cinderella (or Cinderfella) stories
of Hollywood – the ways an actor has struggled through tough times and relative
obscurity, even though it seems as though they work harder than anyone else.
In the case of Terrence Howard, the glass slipper
came in the form of two very different movie releases in 2005 – Hustle & Flow and Crash. Three years later, he’s come even
further with a strong supporting role in the amazing film Iron Man.
Terrence has always talked frankly about his
musical influences, eclectic tastes and dedication to his craft – so much so
that he’s often criticized for being too
unique. He’s also been linked romantically to many ladies, then called a
woman-hater after giving some of his opinions on women in the press.
How has he accepted his mainstream fame after being
a best-kept-secret for so long? How does he handle personal criticism in the
midst of his success? How does he stay focused in the whirlwind that his life
has become? We took a slow drag of quiet time with the ever-busy
actor/musician/producer to find out why he’s really built for this.
AllHipHop.com: How do you feel about being part of
such an epic movement [with Iron Man]?
Terrence Howard: After so many years of being part
of so many smaller films, you like the smaller films because there’s a lot of
creative freedom involved, but there’s no fiduciary rewards or reaping from
those films. Hustle & Flow has
benefitted me down the line because it’s allowed me to do other movies, but I
have not stopped working since then. I haven’t been able to really take a break
or vacation. I picture people like Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman or
even Denzel [Washington] being able to disappear for four or five months.
I’ve had to work continually. So a film like this
gives me a financial base and hopefully if we do a sequel, knowing that next
year I will still make X amount of dollars because we have this next film
locked. That frees me up to do independent films if I want, but also frees me
up to take a vacation and enjoy the movie star life that I keep hearing so much
about and still have never been able to experience.
AllHipHop.com: Are your kids pretty stoked that
you’re in Iron Man?
Terrence Howard: Yeah, but they don’t express it
like that. They keep it real tight-mouthed about it. I’m still their daddy.
They’re still wondering whether I’m gonna be mad at them for their report card
or for them going in my stuff or something that they weren’t supposed to do.
They enjoy the privileges, but they’ve always seen the privileges that I have.
If I have to steal I’ll make sure they have the things that they need. They’re
stoked, but I don’t see them expressing it outwardly.
“I don’t mind being considered
eccentric, but sometimes within the Hip-Hop or Black community, eccentric is
oftentimes associated with being gay or something like that. I’m a hell of an
individual.”
AllHipHop.com: Your character Rhodey is more of a
straight man to Tony Stark’s eccentric personality, but in real life you’ve
actually been called eccentric quite a bit. How does it feel for you to be
considered eccentric, and do you embrace that?
Terrence Howard: I don’t mind being considered
eccentric, but sometimes within the Hip-Hop or Black community, eccentric is
oftentimes associated with being gay or something like that. I’m a hell of an
individual. I got suspended about 15 times a year growing up for
insubordination. I wish it had been for being eccentric, but I think eccentric
is seeing life for yourself and being willing to express and experience it for
yourself. But we are so used to conformity that any time someone steps outside
the normal box we label them as weird or different.
I remember when I first heard online that Will
Smith was gay, I was like, “Oh…that’s possible, I guess.” But then
when I read online that I was gay, I
was like, “Oh, who the hell came up with that?” The eccentricity of
being an individual is always gonna make you separate from the rest of
everybody else, and you have to be okay with that. But I set out to see the
world through my own eyes, experience it and taste the world for myself,
instead of having someone else tell me this is what the world tastes like.
I want to know, I need to know just for my own
sake of being me at the end of the day. I’m kind of glad I’m eccentric if that
is what I am. I just think I’m human. I think I’m an individual human like
anybody else.
AllHipHop.com: The Hip-Hop community values
struggle. You worked for 12
years before somebody said, “Wow that guy’s a great actor” in
mainstream America.
Terrence Howard: Really it was 20 years. I was 36
years old when Hustle & Flow kind
of hit the world and I had been acting since I was about 16 years old, so 20
years inside of a profession normally you would receive some type of pension
from it. But the pension becomes the fan recognition, the respect from peers.
To get a phone call from Denzel saying, “I
saw the movie, you did a damn good job” – that in itself is the reaping of
all the struggle and hard work, and that’s the best thing an actor can hope to
gain. Hopefully the monetary side will balance and match itself. I used to
think that being a Hip-Hop artist or singer would be the most important thing
in somebody’s life and pay them more than anything else. Every singer wants to
be an actor, because an actor really makes the money.
AllHipHop.com: When filming Get Rich Or Die Trying with 50 Cent, you [talked] about what you
were learning from him. I’m sure he broke a lot of things down about that too.
Terrence Howard: [nods] It’s the business side of
it. You’ll make more money from advances than you will in sales, so you gotta
make sure that the propaganda is greater than the reality, and that you can
follow up the reality with even greater propaganda. It’s a talking game, it’s not
really a musician’s game. In me making my own album, I made an album just for
me to hear and if somebody else falls into it then that’s wonderful.
But I was told from the start, do not think that
you’re going to get rich and retire off of an album or a number of albums.
That’s for the very lucky and few, like Celine Dion – 200 million copies of her
albums sold, she can retire off of that.
I don’t know anybody else that’s sold 200 million copies of an album. That’s
the very few and far between.
AllHipHop.com: You mentioned before that when you
did the church scene in Hustle & Flow
that it was actually you – you just felt the moment and it wasn’t acting. In
doing a movie like Iron Man where you
got to do a lot of improv, were there any moments where you just came out?
Terrence Howard: There’s times when me and Robert
[Downey Jr.] are talking on the plane – all of that is just kind of improve,
literally. He just runs through everything… it doesn’t matter, any casualties
just happen. I didn’t know we were
rolling, and I said to him, “You know what? If you need your diaper
changed just let me know. I’m your babysitter, I’ll change your diaper” –
so that was me.
“I don’t really talk to my kids too much or to my
family when I’m becoming somebody else, because sometimes these monsters are
completely different and your children aren’t safe around certain monsters.”AllHipHop.com: Do you have any special meditations
or techniques you practice before you get into a role?
Terrence Howard: Nah, I just try to immerse myself
with enough information about the character that I possibly can and associate
with the people that the character would be around because that’s who he’s
gonna be influenced by. We imitate those that are around us, so I spend as
little time as possible in the mirror, because the mirror’s always gonna remind
me of who I am.
I don’t really talk to my kids too much or to my
family when I’m becoming somebody else, because sometimes these monsters are
completely different and your children aren’t safe around certain monsters. The
love of your children is going to prevent you from climbing that next tier into
absolute b###### nature, and some of these characters are like that. But I
isolate myself – it’s a great deal of isolation for a while, hard on
relationships.
Girlfriends have a hard time understanding that
I’m gonna be gone for the next two months. I may not call you. It doesn’t mean
that I’m not thinking about you, but I won’t be able to call you for the next
couple of months because I won’t exist. When I come out hopefully everything is fine. I have yet to find a woman
that’s still there when I get back.
AllHipHop.com: You’ve had a variety of roles from
the comedic edge to the very dramatic, but you were kind of stuck with the bad
boy image for a little while. Did you feel like you had to break out of that?
Terrence Howard: Well, I knew I would never be
able to break out of that because the bad boy image was rebellious. The
rebellion, the anarchist so to speak, that is me. So I’ll never fully be able
to escape from it, but what I kept constantly trying to bring to it is the
other human qualities, characteristics, mannerisms, sensibility, vulnerability
which has been lost on the cutting room floor, or often times in the rehearsal
hall, the actors never bring that, which has brought me out of it because I’ve
been seen as human.
I don’t remember the last time I was picked to do
a bad boy character. I was actually thinking the other night after watching American Gangster, I said, “You
know what, it may be time for me to jump back into the monster.” I called
my agent and I was like, “You know, let’s find something a little more
grimy. Let’s get back into the grimy world and take another spin around that
block.”
“If you do not approach it with the greatest
reverence, knowing that this may be the last time that anyone hears of this
person or sees them alive, you lend your spirit to them [so] you better make
sure you know what you’re doing.”AllHipHop.com: How much value do you place on your
involvement in the more historical movies like Pride, Boycott, King Of The World where you played
Muhammad Ali… and now you’re [possibly] doing the Thurgood Marshall role [in The Crusaders]. How much do you
put on that in educating not just the African-American community, but America
at large about these people that really changed history.
Terrence Howard: Well those are the most
frightening ones because they carry the most weight with them. The magnitude
that you bring to a character like that, oftentimes the individual isn’t as
well known as you have come to know him. You have the responsibility and become
a part of that individual’s legacy. If you do not approach it with the greatest
reverence, knowing that this may be the last time that anyone hears of this
person or sees them alive, you lend your spirit to them [so] you better make
sure you know what you’re doing. You gotta know that you’re going to affect the
rest of their life forever.
They’re talking about doing [a] Richard Pryor [movie]
now and there’s a lot of talk about whether I want to be a part of that. I’m
scared to death to step into that because there’s so much about Richard that
has to be told well. It cannot be glazed over, and I have to take on the
tenacity of Richard and the demons also that plagued him that ultimately led to
his death. Sometimes you don’t want to get caught up in there, but sometimes
you can’t help but get caught in that hurricane of activity.
AllHipHop.com: Aside from your recent role on
Broadway and Iron Man, any last words
on things that you’re working on?
Terrence Howard: I produced, arranged and wrote my
album with my producing partner who is my bass player Miles Mosley. It’s called
Shine Through and it comes out in
September, me and the Band of Kings.Click here to read the AllHipHop.com Iron Man review
