After taking on the role of Henry Lowe in The Great Debaters, a moving true story about an all-black debating team from Wiley College that went on to challenge Harvard for the national championship, Nate Parker sat down with The Deadbolt to talk about working with Denzel Washington, the greatness of Oprah, what he took away from the project, and what it was like to be directed by Denzel Washington and Uwe Boll in the same year.

THE DEADBOLT: There are a lot of scenes where you had to stand toe-to-toe with Denzel Washington. What was he like to work with from an acting perspective and then as a director?

NATE PARKER: As an actor, it was everything I had ever hoped it would be. I always compare it to college and getting my Masters in a course. Working with Denzel, one of the things he told me several times was to keep it honest; do whatever is honest. I felt genuinely connected every time I looked into his eyes. I felt he really cared about the content, the character, the project, and he was, above all else, connected. That helped me. Denzel says himself that success and failure is a reflection of leadership. I think that I was able to be who I was and able to speak the truth of my character the way I did, not only because of my research, but because I had such as great leader as an actor.

Now to turn it to a director, I never felt like I was being directed. It almost felt like there wasn’t a director. Denzel, the actor, would be in scenes and after a scene he would talk to you and get your response to different questions. It was such a collaboration. I never felt like I was being fed lines, I never felt like I was being swayed to do something I didn’t want to do, and I never felt like I had to emulate him. He completely trusted our research, he trusted everything I brought to the character and that enabled me to really believe in what I was doing and to be focused and trust my instincts.

THE DEADBOLT: How familiar were you with Wiley College and the story before signing on to the project?

PARKER: I was not. I had heard of Wiley College only in the context of it being a historical black college. Anything outside of that, I had no idea, and I had no idea I should. It raises a very interesting issue of the stories even now that we don’t know about.

THE DEADBOLT: As I watched the movie, I found myself thinking, "Why don’t they teach this stuff in public schools?" I’ve never heard of this story before.

PARKER: I think it’s because it goes against the status-quo. There’s a certain curriculum that has been evident in our up-bringing that is traditional. And like great tradition, no one wants to rock that boat. When you think of the history of the United States, a lot of people don’t want to go back so far to include the fact that there were a lot of criminal acts happening with the Native Americans, with the African Americans. When you think about slavery, they remind you of the Emancipation Proclamation and Abraham Lincoln. When you think about the Civil Rights movement, they persuade you to believe that it started with Martin Luther King and his march on Washington or Selma. They kind of leave out the time in between and they leave out the details and we focus more on the Revolutionary War and the things that are just traditional in our culture, as Americans. I think that it’s up to us, the people - that I don’t want to say risk takers - but the people who are willing to stick their necks out. It boils down to this: Miss Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Forest Whittaker, all sacrificed, whether it be money or box office, to shine a light on something they believed in, a story in the making for ten years. Had they not done it, would we be on the phone right now? Had Denzel not put his name on the project as a director and an actor, would we be having this conversation, you know what I mean?

THE DEADBOLT: Absolutely. Since you mentioned Oprah, was she on set that much and did you get a chance to speak with her?

PARKER: I did not. The one time she was supposed to come we had a really bad storm and it was really muddy, so they said she might not come in. The first time I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Winfrey was on her show. She was fantastic; she was very present in the moment. I didn’t feel like she had too much going on to actually look me in the eye and have a conversation with me and that meant a lot to me. She gave me advice and she told me to stay present in all of these things that were happening. It was definitely a joy to meet her.

THE DEADBOLT: What was it about Henry Lowe that spoke to you when you read the script?

PARKER: I think what attracted me to him the most was that he had so many layers as a character. Often times in a script your character doesn’t have much of an arc. He is who he is, he has his plight, and then the movie ends. With this guy, he had a foot in the street and a foot in school and he was tormented in many ways because he had to suffer the plight of a black man in America in the Jim Crow South, and he had to compromise his dignity every single day. There’s something to be said about that, not being able to hold your head high. Coming from a people in Africa who build themselves on pride and culture and to be stripped of any nuance of that life had to be devastating. So I felt like I had so much room to play. By play, I mean work.

Nate Parker is a Great Debater Page 2