[IMG:L]Lakeview Terrace stars Samuel L. Jackson as a veteran LAPD cop, with a rather large chip on his shoulder, who begins harassing his new neighbors, an interracial couple played by Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington. Yep, there’s a lot to read between the lines, and in our chats with the cast, they’ve pointed out some key hotbed topics surrounding the film.
Read our exclusive interview with Patrick Wilson
Check out Lakeview Terrace movie stills
#1: The obvious one: the Race Issue
Kerry Washington: “I love my character because I’ve never really seen a black woman like Lisa on the screen before. She’s this Berkeley graduate, Birkenstock-wearing, Prius-driving, granola, organic, white-boyfriend girl. Clearly, her parents have put her in the kinds of schools and socio-economic situations in which she’s very comfortable with white people. And really open to the idea of living in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic life. It’s evident in the dinner party they throw and who their friends are. Race is an issue, but it’s not the ONLY issue. And I think that is kind of the world we live in today. You look at a candidate like Barack Obama and of course being African-American is part of the issue. It’s part of the menu of who he is but it’s not the only thing and it’s really not the most important thing. It’s really about who’s the next best human being to run this country. And this movie is about human beings and how they are treating each other.”
Samuel L. Jackson: “[Lakeview Terrace] a treatise on race, I guess. One guy’s harassment of a peace loving, beautiful little couple trying to start out life. But for me, explaining racism is not something that you can necessarily do. Having grown up in the segregated South, a lot of times you really don’t need a reason other than somebody doesn’t like you so you don’t like them and you can be taught not to like a specific group or things happen with children. People say kids aren’t born with hate. I don’t know. Maybe. People say different things about what you’re born with, what you’re not born with but there comes a time when you have to make a decision or you know what’s right and what’s wrong or the things that you’ve been told about a specific group, you know aren’t true because human beings are human beings unless you’re an ignorant human being and then you believe what you want to believe but you cannot like people for whatever reason you don’t like them. In this, I didn’t think it was specifically necessary to explain a lot of what goes on inside Abel’s head or how he got to that particular place. It’s like cops work with other cops and at a certain point you stop being black, white, brown whatever and you become blue, but I don’t think that’s true either because inside the police department there are all these fraternal orders and different things that people do have racial specifics that they work with and at a certain point, yea they’re blue but there’s also the point where you see the racial divide and how another person thinks about another group because of the way they treat them. And at a certain point we’ll explain what Abel’s problem is but that’s not necessarily why he’s been the way he’s been all his life. It’s not something he carried with him all his life. There’s a specific incident that happens that creates this thing.”
All Photo(s) by Sony Pictures Entertainment- © 2008- All Rights Reserved
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#2 The Police Issue
Samuel L. Jackson: Um, OK, let me see: the evolution of me and security with the police. I’m a product of the ‘60s, so you know if you weren’t down with what I was down with you weren’t knocked so I didn’t trust cops. Like I said, I grew up in the segregated South. There were two black policemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee when I was growing up and they were very dangerous for black people because they had to prove to the white cops that they were good cops. All my friends who were really bad kids got jacked up by these cops a lot so no I didn’t trust those cops. I moved to New York and I became a professional actor. No wait a minute I came to California. When I got kicked out of college, I came to California in ’69, ’70. Phew La Police. A whole new breed of cop there. Very different. I remember getting snatched out of my car because I had a Free Angela Davis t-shirt. He was like, ‘Oh you think she ought to be free?’. Getting harassed about that and the guy who was in the car with me actually got arrested because he had a jaywalking ticket. So L.A. cops were pretty much like the Gustavo then. If you had a big afro, you were told to put your head down. And then I got to New York and it was a different kind of cop. You know you could walk up to a cop in New York and ask them for a light for your joint and they’d light it for you. They didn’t want to be bothered. If you weren’t bothering them, they didn’t bother you. That was the New York I moved into in the ‘70s. I guess with a level of fame and doing specific kinds of movies and representing police in a specific kind of way, the respect that I get from policemen is very interesting these days. I don’t think I’m better than other people and I don’t do things to break the law. I’ve gotten jaywalking tickets in L.A. which is kind of weird and then the cop will say something to you like, I need your autograph. Sign the ticket.
Kerry Washington: “One of the things that really attracted me to the part is the misuse of authority. I had this friend in college from Vermont and we used to laugh a lot about the fact that when the cops were around when she was a little girl, she felt safe. For me, as a little girl growing up in the Bronx, when the cops were around, I did NOT feel safe. I was nervous, what the hell is going on? I was taught from a young age how to behave in the presence of the police because you never know what’s going on, if it’s a trustworthy experience. I’ve had cousins locked up for no reason. Now I live in L.A. and of course the cops are not known for their benevolent reputation. I do think there are incredibly responsible and conscientious cops out there. But I grew not believing that’s what I was always going to get. So, that was a lot about the movie was for me. What happens when this person who is supposed to be your savior, your security, is actually the person who is causing you the most harm?” [PAGEBREAK]
#3: The Sam Jackson Issue
[Writer/director] Neil LaBute: “You know he’s somebody who you have a character that because he certainly has the authority for the cop. I believe the sense of authority that he brings to it but he’s quite wonderful to watch with his children. He’s a widower and so the human side needed to be able to be tapped into you know and it’s not a very conventional bad guy. You know while he’s a guy who you certainly question the choices that he’s making and the reasoning behind it, you’re able to follow the beats when he says why he’s bothered by this or what the back-story for him is, it makes sense. It doesn’t feel like he’s just a villain. It feels like a guy who’s been pushed in a certain direction and his belief system is altered. So he makes that commanding figure and yet a believably human one too so he’s able to you know, to tap into whatever you need. And he just works quickly and smartly and it’s nice to be around somebody who knows how to shoot movies so well as well. He comes prepared. I mean he’s like all the good people I’ve worked with. He just comes and has ideas and isn’t afraid to say them and doesn’t just do what you want him to do. You know he wants to know why we’re doing things and that makes the movie better. It makes you continually question the script and make sure you’re asking all the right questions yourself so I’m not afraid of somebody who’s constantly asking you know why aren’t we doing this and does this make sense for the character and for the story and so you get that along with a performance that really works.” [PAGEBREAK]
#4: The Crazy Neighbor Issue
Neil LaBute: “I think the movie really speaks to that fact, that it can be very hard to live with each other. For me, literally, it’s that Rodney King statement, “Can’t we all get along?” And the answer is emphatically varied. I just think it’s really hard to live together in relationships, and next to each other and share walls. But you have to because what’s the alternative? This is the alternative. But how do we believably make this the alternative. A film like Unlawful Entry is the over-the-top movie version in which the guy empties the bank account and changes with your records at the DMV. As opposed to, here’s a guy who just wants to mess with you and you can’t get him to understand you. And the fact he’s a cop, who else do you call? In the end, it becomes a Western. I have to help myself.” [PAGEBREAK]
#5: The Politically Correct Issue
Samuel L. Jackson: “For me [not using the “n” word] is not real. There are things that happen in movies and I sit there and I can get taken out of a movie by something that’s not real just because you know I go, ‘Aw damn, it was going all so well till they did that.’ I don’t know. There are several different schools of thought on set about that. I’ve said it . I’ve said nigger several times while we’ve been shooting and everybody’s like [gasps], so that’s just how it happens. I say it because I want to say it because I’m emphasizing a point. [In one scene from Lakeview Terrace] I come out of the police precinct and all the white cops are standing there, and they’re laughing. When I walk up, everybody stops so in my mind if that happens it’s kind of like you were talking about me. So to kill all of that, I say, ‘I’ve heard nigger jokes before and they all go oh no, no, no’ so it’s kind of like oh OK. So it kind of puts people on the defensive. The whole Imus thing started something else and then it’s like we’re going to bury the “n” word. You can’t. You really can’t. It’s going to be said forever. Somebody’s going to say it. Everybody can say it’s politically incorrect. It’s not cool. You can’t say this, you can’t say that but people say what they are going to say. Words are out there and words are words. You understand them or you don’t understand them. You talk in context. You know it’s kind of like people making you say, well you can’t say the n word. Well, I know you meant nigger. The “n” word doesn’t make it any better. It’s just as bad. You know it’s like when I grew up in the South, white people who were trying to be OK said ‘nigras.’ Come on. It’s like, shit that sounds just as bad. Or the colored people. That’s just as bad. Either you mean it or you don’t mean it or you don’t mean anything but you’re just being descriptive. You’re saying whatever it means. In Jackie Brown I said nigger what? Six times in one sentence. Spike ran out of the theatre, but it was cool.
“I mean dumb things that have happened in movies. For instance, there’s this big scene in [Lakeview Terrace] that’s really great. It’s a bachelor party and we’ve got three strippers at the party, but it’s a PG movie so there ain’t no titties. It’s kind of like, man, we’ve got three strippers in the house and ain’t nobody got their top off. How does that work? You even shoot a girl from the back with just her back bare. At least it gives the impression that she didn’t have her top on but you can’t see a girl standing there with her bra and her top on. Drunk cops! You have 40 drunk cops in the house and three strippers and nobody’s got their top off? I don’t f**king think so.
