The Wild Reed: For André Holland, “Selectiveness Has Served Him Well”

One of my favorite actors, André Holland, was recently interviewed by David Canfield for Vanity Fair.

Writes Canfield in the introduction to his conversation with Holland:

[I]t’s clear that selectiveness has served him well – even if it led to some moments of serious self-doubt. He broke out on the big screen in 2016 with his wrenching final-act turn in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, before going on to lead Netflix projects helmed by Steven Soderbergh (High Flying Bird) and Damien Chazelle (The Eddy). Next week sees the release of arguably his most impressive film performance to date, as an acclaimed painter forced to confront his abusive father in Titus Kaphar’s Exhibiting Forgiveness. And more projects are in the pipeline as well [including] The Knick’s long-delayed third season.

Following are excerpts from David Canfield’s October 8, 2024 Vanity Fair interview with André Holland. Enjoy!

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Vanity Fair: You’ve said you gave everything to [Exhibiting Forgiveness]. What did that mean to you?

André Holland: To speak candidly about it, when I first got the script, I was going through a pretty tough time personally. My father was battling cancer, having some very serious health issues. When I read the story, it felt like there was a sense of alignment. Obviously, my relationship with my father is nothing like what’s depicted in the film, but [my character] Tarrell had been living for many years in the absence of his father. I was at a place where I was approaching the beginning of the absence of my father. I knew it was going to call for an emotional honesty and availability – and that the things that were going on in my own life, I wasn’t going to be able to tuck away or to hide. I had to bring all of that to the part, which is a scary thing to do. But that’s the calling, man.

The other thing you had to do with this project is learn how to paint. That’s a more practical education, right?

AH: And I had absolutely zero art training whatsoever. I was a kid in school where a teacher would say, “We’re going to draw a fire engine” or whatever, and I’d draw it and mine would come out looking like a cat or something. [Laughs] But Titus and I started in the studio before we really even started working on the text, and so I would go up and spend time with him and just paint. We would do everything. We’d read books about painting, we’d go to the museum together. We did blind contour drawings, we did mixing paint. We did all of it, and we both felt really passionately about wanting to make sure that the actual art, making the actual painting wasn’t something that we had to fake or cut around a whole lot.

I wanted to know what that felt like to put paint on canvas. We spent probably about three, three and a half months working together on that aspect of it, and then slowly started to work on the text, and then we continued to work on the painting throughout the project. We were painting even all the way up until the very last day.

. . . [A]s someone who, on screen at least, has often played the role of a character actor, [what's it like] getting two scenes and needing to make them count?

AH: That’s a really good point. You made me think about Moonlight when you said that – thinking about that last scene in that diner. I remember reading that and thinking, I’m coming in at the very end. That’s a lot of responsibility to make sure to honor the work that the other actors have already done, and then you’ve got to carry the whole story and all of that – while wanting to make an impact. That’s really true. It also makes me think back to the early days when I was doing Shakespeare in the Park and I was in the back holding a spear for an hour and a half, and had my three lines: “Yes, my Lord.” “No, my Lord.” “I beseech you, my Lord.” Whatever it was, standing there and feeling like, “That moment’s coming.” I want to make sure I do the best with it. Maybe that is something that’s a part of my practice that I hadn’t really considered.

There’s a lot to mine there, probably, especially because this year, you have this film, and you played Huey P. Newton in the Apple series The Big Cigar – both pretty demanding lead roles. Does it feel different for you as an actor to occupy that space?

AH: It does feel different, and I really like it. For a long time I wondered whether I would be given chances to do that, and when you wonder about that for awhile, sometimes it can erode your confidence. There were moments where I thought, “Am I up to it?” But then getting to do it a handful of times now, I feel very well-equipped to do it, and it’s so much more exciting. Not just the acting part of it – that’s obviously thrilling – but also the way you sort of become a more prominent storyteller or keeper of the story. You feel a sense of responsibility.

Can you share a little bit more about that confidence crisis? Was it not getting parts you were going out for, or not even getting in the room for those parts?

AH: It’s probably a combination of those things, plus also just an internal struggle around self-confidence, which is something that I went to war with and still sometimes have to work on.

I would love to ask you a little bit about Moonlight [above] in that context. Both materially and in terms of how you saw yourself as an actor, how did it change things for you?

AH: It did open up a lot of other opportunities for me. People were more aware of who I am, and people were so kind. Tarell [Alvin McCraney], who wrote the original [play], he and I met when we just came out of grad school – he had come out of Yale, I came out of NYU . . . and then we started doing plays together. Moonlight felt almost like a natural extension of that collaboration. It has been a conversation, a collaboration, an investigation that the two of us had been experiencing together for years. The character that I played in Moonlight is very much an archetype of the character that I played in several of his plays. In a way, that scene that people really responded well to was the product not just of those three weeks of shooting, but also the years of us thinking about: What does it mean to be this person that you meet at the crossroads in your life? I can go on and on about that, but it changed a lot, man. Materially, practically.

And it was a wonderful acting challenge – a really, really wonderful challenge. I loved every second of it. It also set the bar for me of, This is the kind of work that I want to do.

I have to do my journalistic duty and ask you where season three of The Knick is, if anywhere.

AH: We’re still fighting the good fight. It’s taking longer than any of us wanted it to take. At this point, we’re waiting on a brave soul to step up and say, “Let’s go make the show.” We’ve got all the pieces in place and we’re in some good conversations. It’s just a matter of somebody fully committing. Barry’s still in the boat, and I am, and the writers are on – like I said, we’ve got all the pieces. It’s just a matter of finding the right home for it. The period thing scares a lot of people these days. I still think there’s a place in the world for this show. I know that there is – and I’m not going to rest until we get it done.

I know way too many people who are way too excited about the idea of it for there not to be enough of a demand for it.

AH: Seriously. Out of everything I’ve done, that is the one thing that no matter where I go, people always come up to me and say, “What’s going on with The Knick?” It doesn’t matter where I am. It’s happening in France, Italy – all over the world. Folks from all walks of life. I know there’s a place for it. Keep talking about it, man. We’re going to make it happen.

To read David Canfield's interview with André Holland in its entirety, click here.

The Wild Reed

Friday, November 29, 2024

For André Holland, “Selectiveness Has Served Him Well”

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