Terrance Howard

Terrence Howard Turns up FIGHTING

Terrence Howard has gotten over having been taken off of the Iron Man sequel, as he looks toward future projects and discusses his drama Fighting.

If Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard exploded onto the Hollywood scene, after delivering powerful performances in Crash and Hustle & Flow. This month, he can be seen as Harvey Boarden, a down-on-his-luck scam artist who teams up with a naturally talented street fighter (played by Channing Tatum) in Fighting. At a press day for the film, Terrence Howard talked about the future of his acting and music careers.

Q: The character you play in Fighting could have turned out to be the corrupt jerk who’s in on the scheme, but Harvey comes across as very different than that and very sympathetic. Was that something you brought to it?
TH: He’s got a mean streak of morality running up his spine. Like Val Kilmer said, as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, “My hypocrisy only goes but so far.” And then, later on, he said, “My hypocrisy seems to have no bounds.” Harvey’s hypocrisy only went but so far. You can cheat somebody on the streets, but he didn’t like fighting and he couldn’t take a person’s life. But, he also didn’t help people live. So, he’s at that strange place between good and bad, where he’s not good, but doesn’t want to accept that he’s bad. That’s bothered him constantly because he knows he’s more decent than that. He was pretending to be something that he wasn’t.
Q: What attracted you to this in the first place?
TH: Dito Montiel and Channing Tatum, and the idea of working with them, after watching A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I was absolutely floored by that.
Q: What was it like working with Channing?
TH: He reminded me of who I wished I was when I was 21 or 22. He’s in a great position, and he doesn’t carry any of his demons on his skin. It took me a long time to leave the demons inside of a refrigerator someplace and just thaw them out when I need them. He’s managed to do that so early on. He comes to set and he’s so free. He doesn’t have this big bag of badness with him. He’s so great, and I love that about him. I think he’s gonna be one of the most fantastic actors on the planet, by the end of 20 years, of sitting there playing the way he’s playing now, with his fearlessness and the roles that he’s taking. There’s a presence that Channing has.
Q: What is that?
TH: It’s being genuine. He has no ego whatsoever.
Q: What about you?
TH: My ego is in my children now. They are what’s beautiful about me. They are what’s intelligent and creative about me. You can’t have but one ego in a room, so I’d rather they have it for now.
Q: How old are your kids?
TH: They are 11, 13 and 15.
Q: Do you want them to follow in your footsteps? Are they showing any signs of wanting to do that?
TH: My daddy raised me as a contractor, so for most of my life, I did construction. I’m sure because I’m in this business, the kids are naturally going to pick up pig farming.
Q: What drives you, as an actor, to be as intense as you are?
TH: I ride life like it’s a beautiful go-cart. Me and my friends, we’ll get out there and make a go-cart. You spend so much time finding pieces to make the go-cart, and sometimes it don’t work. But then, all of a sudden, you’ve got a go-cart that’s working. And right when you start riding down the hill, your mother calls you and tells you that you gotta come in. The little boy has to stop, right then and there. So, he comes in and he’s angry and sullen in the face. I’m having such a great time in my life right now. I’m making go-carts, you know? And then, when they call me and make me come to work, I walk in there, I slam doors and I do all those things that a little bad kid would do.
Q: Why is acting not your go-cart?
TH: Oh, my God, because there’s other people telling me where I gotta go. It’s not my go-cart any more.
Q: Couldn’t it be?
TH: Not when somebody else is writing the check. You’re in their field. It’s like when you’ve played baseball or basketball at somebody else’s house, where they have all the rules of the court. That’s no fun, whatsoever.
Q: The movie Pride was very centered on you as the lead. Have you been looking for any more leading vehicles like that?
TH: Yeah, but I had to wait for a minute, to trust where I was going. Me, Laura Ziskin, and Tom Schulman, who wrote Dead Poet’s Society, are about to do a film called Morgan’s Summit, where I go back into the lead. And, I’m about to do Macbeth, which we’re producing. We’re gonna do that this summer. And then Chevalier and Antoinette is another film I’m producing.
Q: Who are you going to be playing in Morgan’s Summit?
TH: Morgan’s Summit is really one of the most fantastic films I’ve ever read in my life. Tom Schulman heard me on NPR and asked me to come in, and we began talking about what he wanted to accomplish. The characters in the script are so beautiful. Morgan’s Summit is incredible. It’s the film that I’ve been waiting for. And, I’m talking to some people about doing some incredible bio-pics.
Q: What about Macbeth?
TH: My production company is producing that. We’re shooting in Puerto Rico, starting in June. It’s updated, in present-time Caribbean. It will be a nice thing, to see Shakespeare under a Caribbean sun.
Q: Everyone was really looking forward to seeing you continue in Iron Man. What happened with that?
TH: Iron Man happened with that. Marvel happened with it. They made a choice, and it was a very, very bad choice. They didn’t keep their word. They didn’t honor a contract. They sent everyone out into a field, and told them to work and produce a great bounty. And, you produce a great bounty, and then, when it’s all in the storehouse, you are not allowed in.
Q: Didn’t they also try to pull something with Samuel Jackson, too?
TH: And, they did the same thing with Gwyneth Paltrow, from what I’ve been told. They did it with almost everyone, except Downey. But, one of the things that actors need to learn to do is take a tip from friends. You have to always choose to stick together, one for all and all for one.
Q: Did that teach you a lesson about the politics of Hollywood filmmaking?
TH Yeah. Make sure your T’s are crossed twice.
Q: Didn’t you think it was all just outrageous?
TH: Coming from human beings, it’s not.
Q: Aren’t you kind of dangerous to them, now that you know their plans for the trilogy?
TH: No. When someone does something wrong, you don’t have to get them back. Everything right will return the favor for you.
Q: So, you believe in karma?
TH: Oh, my goodness, yes.
Q: No one should get on your bad side, then?
TH: I’m on the side of right. As long as you keep trying to do what’s right, and you make your mistakes along the way and accept the consequences of your mistakes, you’ll keep surviving.
Q: What are you doing in the music world now?
TH: My flamenco is incredible for me. I’m working on my second album right now.
Q: Will this album reflect who you are now?
TH: Yeah. The first album reflected my nature and the things that I dream of. It was my backdrop. The faraway. You paint the big sky, the sun, the clouds, the landscape and the mountains in the background. This one should paint that mid-range of me. I don’t know who I am yet. After about three or four albums, I’ll be able to predict where I am. But, you can never really see where you are because you’re so busy looking at everything else. You have to move past you, before you can stop and take a look back. I don’t know if it’ll reflect me now, but it’ll reflect where I’ve passed.
Q: Do you love all different kinds of music?
TH: Everything.
Q: How do you choose which kind of music that you want to represent?
TH: You don’t choose to represent any of them, I don’t believe. We’re all antennas. No thought has ever come to you that’s just been indigenous of you. Electricity is moving through us, the same way it’s moving through everything else, and there are waves of activity, according to how things expand in the universe, so that electricity is moving through that. And, every once in a while, you’ll be pushed up on that wave, to where you’ll catch a frequency from something else, and because you were in the right particular frequency yourself, you can respond to it. Maybe you’ll translate it out. But, if you don’t translate it, what ends up happening is that you’re not able to continue moving, according to how everything else is moving.
Q: Is music your go-cart then?
TH: Music is my go-cart. It’s all mine.
Q: Have you thought about writing something in the movie world that could be your go-cart?
TH: I am doing that, too. I’ve got a couple projects.
Q: What kind of genre?
TH: The things that made me want to be an actor, at the very start, were films that told the story of a child’s dream and the regrets of an adult’s past -- anything that can really take you through a continued progressive life. That’s how the films will be. They’ll have to have music as a base for them because I think music creates the fourth dimension. Music gives you depth. Music gives you a sense of time. Chronological order begins where the music begins, not where the color begins, so you need to tell a full story that way.
Q: Would you go back to Broadway, if you found a play you really wanted to do?
TH: As long as it’s not eight shows a week. I love Broadway, but I love Terry, too. I love Terry time, and you don’t have any Terry time, when you’re doing Broadway. You’re always thinking about the character. You’re never able to walk away from him. And then, you’ve got to do him twice on Wednesday and twice on Saturday. You’ve got to rehearse with new people, when somebody’s stepped out of it. You’ve got people in the front audiences looking at you.
Q: Do you think you’ll go see Iron Man 2, next year?
TH: Yeah, I’m definitely looking forward to it. I want to see what happens with that. I want to see Don Cheadle become me. No, I want him to do better than me. That’s what I really want to see. And, I think he can. Don Cheadle was the reason I got Crash. He was one of the producers on Crash, and he called and got me in there. So, anything Don does is good by me. He’s given me the greatest gift that I could ever imagine having. Anything that I have, I’ll share with him.
FIGHTING opens in theaters April 24.

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