Exclusive: John Ridley On Directing ‘Jimi: All Is By My Side’Posted by Wilson Morales
September 24, 2014
Opening this week is Oscar winning screenwriter John Ridley’s directorial debut, “Jimi: All Is By My Side,” starring Andre Benjamin, Hayley Atwell, Imogen Poots, and Ruth Negga.
OutKast’s André Benjamin stars as Jimi Hendrix in this revealing biopic. Covering a year in Hendrix’s life from 1966-67 as an unknown backup guitarist playing New York’s Cheetah Club to making his mark in London’s music scene up until his Monterey Pop triumph, the film presents an intimate portrait of the sensitive young musician on the verge of becoming a rock legend.
For Ridley, who’s best known for writing the screenplays to Undercover Brother, Red Tails, and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which netted him an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, the chance to follow up on a passion project was too good to let someone else take over at the helm. He wanted to direct this project.
In speaking with Blackfilm.com, Ridley conveys his reasons for doing more just being a writer on this film.
At what point did you decide you wanted to direct the film as well as tell this period of Jimi’s life as opposed to a full biopic?
John Ridley: Honestly, it’s a very good question. It’s a little evolutionary. The concept of doing a limited slice of Jimi’s life actually came first. That was based on a song that I had heard one night on the internet. It was called ‘Sending My Love to Linda’ and it was an amazing song. It was powerful and emotional. I remember thinking, “Who’s Linda?’ I started doing some research and looking into some things and just found about this one particular year in his life and how transformative it was. I just felt it was a natural arc in the storytelling. This is a story that is unexpected and that most people are not familiar with and it seemed a really good way to tell his tale. In putting it together and researching it and writing it, I just became more and more passionate about the story and how it should be told and put together; and at some point I felt that to tell it the way it should be told, then maybe I should be the one to direct. I was fortunate to be able to convince people from financiers to actors to get involved with this but it was an evolution of the process. It wasn’t like I wanted to tell this story and I want to direct it right away. It was a story I felt I was discovering. I got more and more attached to it everytime I discovered a new piece of information of that era and got to the point, like a lot of people, where I was so close to it, I didn’t want to let it go.
Was there a challenge in the beginning where you had to sell yourself as a director and selling this aspect of Jimi’s life?
JR: Any time you putting a film together, there are challenges. I think the story itself, and I talking about what’s separate from the script, was so powerful and so nuanced that it wasn’t that difficult to sell people on the concept of getting involved with it. Now, that’s separate from all the work I have to get done to make a movie but people were reading it, they would ask me if this part really happened or if that part was really true. They were just fascinated by things they didn’t know about or weren’t aware of. Again, it’s always difficult to get any film off the ground, but I think of the strength of this story that was able to get people interested in any regard.
How did you come about in casting Andre Benjamin to play Jimi Hendrix?
JR: There’s the physical resemblance around the edges when you say this is the person who can possibly play this part. Then you think of artists who had impact in the musical landscape of the last 20 years and there are few people who come with that level of creativity that Andre has. For me, honestly, it was just sitting down with him for a while. Talking to him, getting a sense of his nature and curiosity about the world, and his reverence for music. You really believe that this individual can bring something to the performance more than the tics and mannerisms of Jimi Hendrix. This is somebody who embodied the spirit and conveyed the emotions that this individual carried with him throughout his life.
How much did you work with Andre so that his acting and performing are elevated to another level?
JR: I would say this. Andre chose to work a great deal for this part and chose to work with me. He lives in Atlanta and came up to Los Angeles and all in from the early introduction we had with each other to the process of working together and talking and to the shooting and rehearsals; it was about 7 1/2 months of his life. For any individual to give up that much time of their life says a lot. For someone who has worked to the point where they have afforded themselves the space where they can do anything they want and they choose to become involved with this project, and again you have to remember, a couple of years ago, pre-Oscar and pre-12 Years a Slave, and he chose to work with me. That says a lot. If nothing else people take away from this film, they take away the power of his performance.
Having written a number of ‘period piece’ films, was this a bit easier to do?
JR: I have been attracted to period pieces and I love history. The reality is that once you step out an era that you are absolutely familiar with, it’s difficult. Whether it’s ’12 Years a Slave’ or ‘Redtails’ or ‘Tuskagee Airmen’ or this time period, and there are a lot of people who have stories about Hendrix, but it was about 47 years ago. The facts are out, but these films are recreating an era and London and that space in time with the look, the clubs, and a lot of layer that you want to put on top of each other. While facts are out there through books and internet, one needs the level of emotionality. That was the challenge for us. It’s one that the performers absolutely pulled off.
How much has changed since you won the Oscar? What’s been the biggest difference?
JR: It’s very interesting. A lot has changed in my life and very fortunately, very little has change. Because these two films were on a similar track at the same time at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, the perception was different. Some people thought I did this because I won the Oscar and I was like, “No. There were going on at the same time.” I was also working on a TV series for ABC that the day after the Oscars, I had to get on a plane to Austin, TX and start production on it. The nice thing is that over the last couple of years, I’ve known what I was going to do next, and was able to roll right into those projects. I really didn’t have that space in time to chat around and thing what the award means and what am I going to do next and how will people perceive me. I’ve been very fortunate in that regard and hope to continue to find projects that I’m passionate about and will continue to work on.
As for your next project, do we need a remake of Ben-Hur and what will you make different?
JR: The original writer, Keith Clark, wrote an amazing story and went back to Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It’s one of those things. Ben-Hur is an iconic film and like any project, people ask, “Why do a remake?” I would say that if anyone is familiar with the original work and what Keith brought to it, you will know why. It’s just an incredibly emotional tale between two individuals who were very close and their lives takes them in different direction and they have to ask each other what they are about and what they are willing to give up to rekindle their friendship. I hope it will be rendered in a tactful way.
Trailer
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