TB: First of all, let’s talk about the creation of Black Dynamite. How early were you involved?

MJW: I created it. I brought everyone else along. It kind of started several years ago when I was shooting a movie called Undisputed 2. I was in Bulgaria and one day I was on my way to set and I had James Brown’s Superbad on. And I just came up with the concept of the movie and I just saw pretty much the whole film. From that day on I just jotted stuff down and then when I got back to LA I went to a rental house and got some 70’s clothes and did my own photo shoot. I got some friends and we did a 70’s photo shoot.

How Scott [the director] got involved was that Scott and I had worked together years ago. He contacted me about a movie he was doing in Brazil and he asked what I was doing and I said, “Well, I’m writing this movie and I’m going to be doing it.” I was actually planning on doing it with another friend of mine co-directing at the time. But Scott was like, “That’s a great idea!” And I said thanks and days went by and then Scott called and said “Man, I can’t get that idea out of my mind. That’s really cool. If you need any help with it, let me know.” And then the pictures came back and I showed them to Scott and things became really cut and dried, he said right out “I’d really love to do this with you.” And so while I’d been putting things together my other friend was busy with some other stuff, and when I was ready to go shoot a trailer, that’s when I ended up working with Scott. I ended up leaving the other guy behind because he was moving too slow. And that’s how it started. Scott came aboard and we did the trailer together.

TB: So you’re obviously very much a fan of the era and very knowledgable about it. Were these the films that made you want to get into film yourself?

MJW: No, not at all. But these films meant a lot to me in a number of ways. I just like the movies of the seventies. I think it’s the decade when movies were the best. And music was the best, too. There was so much going on that was so lively and charged. That’s why I so wanted to do a movie set in the time period, because it’s such a lively time. Sexually charged, everything. Nowadays, when we have such a sexually repressed society that we’re living in today, to revisit that accurately was really my vision.

I’d also had this conversation with Quentin Tarantino, who loved the idea, too. But like my other buddy Quentin was busy with stuff. So I just knew I was gonna get it done on my own and just forged forward and found some good people, some good friends, who wanted to take this journey with me.

But the seventies movies meant a lot to me because that’s the beginning of when you saw any kind of black togetherness or pride surfacing. It was a large movement, but before this you didn’t have any black heroes. Ever. No black heroes who were judged by the same criteria as whites: attractive, leading man, alpha male types. Up until that time black people were only depicted as, well, sub-human in some ways. Or the minstrel, or what have you. Nothing that was uplifting. So the blaxploitation movement, to me, even though it’s got its funny elements … It went a little crazy sometimes - taking the drug dealer or the pimp or the pusher and making that person into a hero because that was the only heroic figure in those neighborhoods – I thought that was quite comical. I would revisit those movies in the 90s and I would laugh about it. And the execution left much to be desired, which was also funny, but underneath that whole thing was just the spirit that they were coming from and that was genuine.

Every now and then I’d have blaxploitation night at my house and my friends and I would watch a blaxploitation movie and be encouraged to heckle, to talk about it. Quentin came to a few of those.

TB: I was going to leave this question until a little later but it seems like you’ve already touched on it a little bit. It seems like even now there really aren’t black action heroes in Hollywood. Even someone like The Rock has to make his living doing family comedies.

MJW: Exactly. If you really look at it, a non-apologetic alpha male, black, it’s interesting that you don’t really see that any more. It’s been systematically erased. Whereas any movie or television show or anything that you see, there is a handsome leading man, white male. Why? Well, it makes sense. People want to live vicariously through that character.

But now, when you think of all the black folks – or African American, or whatever you want to call us – that doesn’t exist any more. But in the seventies we had a lot of black role model leading men. There was Billy Dee Williams, Jim Kelly, Fred Williamson. Every black star was judged on those criteria. And now it’s almost back to where it was before, the way it was in the fifties. You’ve got your Sidney Poitier and that’s it.

TB: It really seems like Hollywood’s got a limited tolerance. They’ll handle one edgy black actor for a time and even then only for a limited time. Sam Jackson was that for a time but they’ve taken that edge off of him and Denzel Washington has been that at different times but they’ve largely taken that edge off of him.

MJW: See, now, Denzel is the Sidney Poitier, who never was about edge. And Sam Jackson, he’s a great character actor but Sam Jackson was never a Richard Roundtree or one of these good looking, leading men. You look at any of the stars from the seventies and they were all handsome leading men. They were judged just the same way as white actors were judged. You can have a black Ed Norton but Ed Norton is not Tom Cruise.

TB: Speaking of guys from the seventies, there have been rumors running around that that’s Rudy Ray Moore narrating your trailer.

MJW: No. That’s Byron, one of my best friends in the world, who did some writing with me for the film. He’s actually in the trailer. When he’s speaking in the trailer you actually hear his voice twice – in the trailer and doing the narration. Byron and I wrote that trailer and he actually says “My main man Black Dynamite” in the trailer. It shows him talking to me and it’s the same guy. But it’s definitely Rudy Ray Moore inspired, his character was inspired by Rudy Ray Moore. And my character, Black Dynamite, was kind of inspired by Jim Brown, Jim Kelly, Fred Williamson … them kind of all mixed.

TB: When I’m talking to people about this film one of the things that strikes me is the general tone of it. I mean, it’s definitely not a spoof. It’s a lot more loving than that. And it seems like it’s more than just a tribute to an era as well. You guys really, really went the extra mile to create a movie that could’ve been from that time.

MJW: Yeah, I really wanted to do that. I wanted it to feel that way and part of feeling that way is having it shot that way and to really grab that look. There was a warmth to that experience. The music and everything, I really wanted to get that. That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to do it independently, because a lot of the studios – who were interested in doing it – I doubted that they would have fought for the authenticity. I felt like staying independent would pay off because I felt like I knew how to bring that about and give people the experience that I had seeing these movies when I was a kid.

TB: One of your producers told me at one point that you’d actually used some real seventies stock footage in this.

MJW: Yeah, yeah.

TB: How much of that is worked in? Where did you even find that stuff? I’m amazed that’s been preserved.

MJW: Well, there are a lot of TV shows and certain things that have never even been used. You can have a TV show that airs six episodes but there are twelve more out there that have never been seen. And they’re all in a vault somewhere. We’ve got great stuff that has never been seen. And we bought it. We purchased it for this movie and for certain things that we’ll use in the sequel. We actually used very little of it because we were able to shoot most of our own stuff.

TB: Now, you just said there’s going to be a sequel?

MJW: Well, now, that’s the plan. And my sequel idea is really bananas. It’s really bananas.

TB: I don’t want to spill anything, but it’s more bananas than what you do at the end of this one?

MJW: Oh, it takes it from there and sends it into the stratosphere. Yeah.

TB: Oh, my. It’s hard to top what you did in this one.

MJW: If you knew what I knew … and again, I had these ideas years ago. So it’s been fermenting. Now I’ve put some whipped cream on top of the ideas I already had.

TB: The action component of the film. You mentioned Undisputed, which a lot of people are familiar with. And people know about your character that ended up getting cut out of Kill Bill – which is a fantastic bit, by the way. But I don’t think many people have really had the chance to really see what your capabilities are as a fighter. Did you do your own choreography in this? What’s your own background with the martial arts?

MJW: I’ve been in martial arts since I was seven years old. I have several black belts. I consider myself one of the most lucky martial artists in the world because I’ve trained with literally the top instructors in several arts. I’ve trained with Jet Li’s instructor in China and with absolute masters – people who are the popes of their systems. I don’t know anybody who has a martial arts family tree like I have. I’ve always been welcome to train in a lot of places because I’ve made my living as a martial artist for years, it’s not like I just did it as a hobby. It’s part of who I am. So I’ve been privy to the, I guess, elite world of martial arts.

And because of that I was able to amass some of the greatest martial arts talent. For Black Dynamite, it’s really hilarious – the guys I have doing stunts, ninety percent of my stunt people are actually stunt coordinators. I don’t know if I had a regular stunt man. Each one of them, if you check their name, has coordinated stunts and action sequences in major films. I look at it and it’s kind of funny to have all of these guys in the same room. It’s the All Stars of stunt stuff. And this was a walk in the park for us because I chose to do it seventies style, which is a fairly easy type of choreography. It’s pretty straight up, not a lot of the Hong Kong angles or choreography that we see today. Most of the action sequences were choreographed just a little bit before shooting and done really quick. It’s kind of like if you had a professional dancer, who has danced all of their life, it’s pretty easy to film them just dancing.

TB: One of the other things about the film that I thought was remarkably well done was how you managed to bring in a lot of celebrity cameos without ever letting their personalities over run the film. They never feel like themselves in the movie. Were you able to get these guys to come in and check their egos just because they wanted to be part of the project?

MJW: Well, yeah. And, really, ninety percent of the people, all of the major parts in the casting, they came out of my cell phone. Basically, almost everybody you see there, I just called. So these people were friends, these are people I knew. And some of the people who found out about it and wanted to join on, I just felt like “This is a movie that’s easy to get wrong.” It would have been easy to get cutesy. Like someone suggested we get Snoop Dogg to play a pimp. Well, no, that’s not right. That’s not even good. Unless he can convince you that he’s a guy from the seventies and they just didn’t speak that way. That’s a Hollywood choice, that’s not an artistic choice. There were a few people, I felt, who were very well known but wouldn’t have lent to the whole feel. It’s easy to get wrong. And we didn’t have to deal with any kind of ego whatsoever because everybody was right on the same page.

TB: Have you been able to get distribution for this yet or is that likely to happen at Sundance?

MJW: Well, it’ll happen at Sundance or we can do it ourselves. I don’t foresee it as a huge problem. We’ve chosen to get it done and not seek out distribution first.