Currently playing on Netflix is Da 5 Bloods, director Spike Lee’s follow-up movie to his Oscar-nominated BlacKkKlansman.
The film follows four African American Vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) who return to Vietnam. Searching for the remains of their fallen Squad Leader (Chadwick Boseman) and the promise of buried treasure, our heroes, joined by Paul’s concerned son (Jonathan Majors), battle forces of Man and Nature — while confronted by the lasting ravages of The Immorality of The Vietnam War.
The cast also includes Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, Johnny Trí Nguyễn, Van Veronica Ngo, and Jean Reno.
Blackfilm.com recently spoke with Delroy Lindo and Jonathan Majors, who play father and son in the film. For Lindo, this is his fourth collaboration with Lee after Malcolm X, Crooklyn and Clockers. For Majors, who broke out in 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, he gets to be the newcomer in a Spike Lee Joint.
Delroy, you’ve been working with Spike for over 25 years. Can you talk about coming back and working with him again?
Delroy Lindo: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He’s always gifted me these wonderful parts. West Indian Archie in Malcolm X, Woody Carmichael in Crooklyn, Rodney Little in Clockers, and now Paul in this film. It’s a continuum. Now to be not to be blind about this. The gift of the work. What can I say about that? “Hey man here, I want you to do.” This a creative affirmation, a human affirmation, an affirmation of why I went to acting school back in the late 70s. One cannot ask for more than this. And then on top of that, to have audiences, journalists, your colleagues, audiences appreciate and respond and be touched by the film be touched by the work. It’s why I went to acting school.
Jonathan, you’re new to the Spike Lee world. You’re getting to work with Delroy and a number of other actors who’s worked with him in the past. What was it like to be on that set and being the newbie of his world?
Jonathan Majors: The Youngblood. I think people excel and do well in their crafts because, regardless of what it is, they have a great time deal of self possession, they know who they are, and they also have a great deal of humility. And so because of that, and because this cast was so great, and did have those attributes, humility and self possession, there was never a sense of territory or a sense of yours. There was a sense of family, and it’s a team and platoon and tribe. And so I never felt like a newbie. I just felt like the new thing. I’m here to do my thing because these actors I was with, we have the same DNA. We have the same upbringing.
Delroy Lindo is a Shakespeare. I too am a Shakespeare. He is a made his way through the Shakespeare canon. I too have made my way through the Shakespeare camp, and the thing we have in common now is that at one point when he was around my age when Spike tapped him and now Spiked has tapped me. So, it was so communal. It was just emboldening and just like, “Okay, we’re here.” There were days where I felt like the puppy, run around a dog park with so much energy. Literally, I would run to and from set.
Delroy Lindo: This cat. We will break for lunch. We’re all exhausted. I would walk back to my base camp and try to get my little exercise. This cat would run every single day run and sometimes with a backpack on his back. He would run this.
What’s your biggest takeaway from doing this movie and being in Vietnam?
Delroy Lindo: Humanity, the affirmation of love. I want to go back to Vietnam, a mystique about that about Saigon. I really want to go back. A people who have 4000 years of being a people trying to trample them and people trying to attack them, and they have risen up and rejected and said “No.” I relate to that as an African descended person. So it comes down to affirmation, upon affirmation, upon affirmation upon affirmation.
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