Spike Lee Q&A

Ali Jafaar catches up with the outspoken director to discuss working on his new crime caper 'Inside Man'.

Mar 24 2006

Spike Lee flips the script with an unexpected change of pace on 'Inside Man', reuniting with Denzel Washington, and recruiting the likes of Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe and Britain's own Clive Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor for a jazzy heist movie with more twists than a pretzel. Here, he talks to Time Out about shooting in a post-9/11 New York and why the city will always be home to him.

Did you make 'Inside Man' to show you could deliver a mainstream picture?

Many people have said that, but it wasn't my thinking at all. There was nothing calculated behind it whatsoever. I read the script, I liked it and I wanted to do it. I wasn't thinking, 'Let me do a commercial script, get some stars and have a big budget.' That did not go into the thinking. Maybe some people would say I should start thinking like that, but it was not the reason I wanted to direct it. But this is a heist film. It isn't what we'd expect to see from a Spike Lee film. I've gotta keep the audiences guessing.

What other films inspired you?

The film we pay the most homage to, there's even two or three references to it, is 'Dog Day Afternoon'. In fact, we cast two actors that were in 'Dog Day…' in this movie. During the rehearsal process, we'd rehearse during the day and at night I'd screen films at my house for the cast. I showed three films by Sidney Lumet– 'Dog Day…', 'Serpico', 'The Anderson Tapes'. Two films by John Schlesinger – 'Midnight Cowboy', 'Marathon Man', Norman Jewison's 'The Thomas Crown Affair', Bryan Singer's 'The Usual Suspects' and Sam Peckinpah's 'The Getaway'. If you look at those films, you can divide them into two categories – those that were heist films and those that deal with New York.

This is a fairly light-hearted genre film, but it still very much conveys the sense of a post-9/11 New York. To what extent has the city healed itself?

The wound is still open. If you have a turban on your head, you're still gonna get funny looks going through airports. Right or wrong, that's the reality. They're going to pull you to the side and security is going to look through your things.

What does New York mean to you as a filmmaker?

It's where I live, it's where I grew up. It's the place I know and it's the place I've always wanted to live. It's a fascinating city. There's 8 million stories in the naked city and I've only told some of them so far.

This is your fourth movie with Denzel. What is it about your partnership that works so well?

We just click. Denzel and I don't really try to spend too much time trying to analyse it. We just know it works. We know the films speak for themselves. We're very proud of the work we've done and we want to continue doing more films together.

You're wearing an Arsenal shirt. Do you ever envisage coming to London and shooting here like Woody Allen?

Woody's done two films here already and he's getting ready to shoot a third. I'd like to shoot a film in London but I'd need to have the right story first. I don't know what that story would be but I would definitely like to shoot here one day.

'Inside Man' opens today.

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