Arts & Entertainment
Father and Son Discuss Coming-of-Age Comedy
By Kam Williams
Special To The Skanner
News
M
ario Van Peebles was
born in Mexico City on
January 15, 1957 to
Maria Marx and the legendary
actor/director/composer/scriptwrit
er Melvin Van Peebles. Heo made
his acting debut as a teenager in
his father’s film Sweet Sweet-
back’s Badasssss Song (1971),
before embarking on an enduring
career as a thespian marked by
memorable outings in every-
thing from New Jack City
(1991) to playing Stokely
Carmichael in Panther (1995)
to impersonating Malcolm X
in Ali (2001).
Mario has also stepped
behind the camera to direct a
number of films, most
notably, New Jack City, Pan-
ther, Badasssss! (2003) and Posse
(1993). His latest offering, We the
Party, is a bit of a family affair, in
that it stars his 18 year-old son,
Mandela, and features his father
and four other children, Makaylo,
Maya, Morgana and Marley, in
supporting roles.
Here, Mario and Mandela talk
about the movie, a coming-of-age
comedy which might be best
thought of as an African-American
variation on American Pie (1999).
Kam Williams: Hi Mario and
Mandela, thanks for the interview.
You know, back in ’79, I had the
honor of running part of the
Boston Marathon alongside
Melvin Van Peebles. Your father’s
one of my idols.
Mario: Cool, man. When you
met him did you go, “Come on
feet! Do your Thing!” like his
character did in Sweet Sweetback?
[LOL]
KW: I’m sure I did. What inter-
‘I only paid myself ten
dollars to write it and
one dollar to direct it’
Page 8 The Portland Skanner
ested you in making We the Party?
Mario: Half of it came from just
witnessing the party all around
me. I had this cool constituency of
five teenagers growing up, listen-
ing to all this new music and deal-
ing with all the “isms” that are still
alive. They’re trying to climb
through: lookism… classism…
sexism… racism. Then they liter-
ally threw a huge party at the
house for one of their birthdays.
July 25, 2012
Mandela: Yeah, one of my
brothers and I have our birthdays
around the same time, and my
father wasn’t giving us as big an
allowance as others in our age
group. So, we figured we should
pool our money, hire a DJ, hire
security, order some pizza and
refreshments, and charge $10 a
head. It was amazing! We had at
least 500 people show up.
KW: Wow!
Mario: But it never got out of
control like Project X because
“dad” was there. I patrolled the
premises with my video cam-
era, and tried to keep the hor-
mones from raging out of
control. The way these kids
behave, it sort of looks like safe
sex out there on the floor. The
last time I danced liked that I
had a baby 9 months Iater. So,
inspired by real events, I started
piecing the story together piece
by piece.
KW: How true to life is the
movie?
Mandela: A lot of the movie
was inspired by real life, but some
of it is fiction. For instance, I
would get so mad, if my brother
really got a car and I didn’t.
KW: How similar are you to
your character, Hendrix?
Mandela: He’s the same kind
of kid as me. He’s stylish, but he’s
not the coolest kid or the weirdest
kid. He’s kind of in his own
world.
KW: Mandela, Harriet Pakula
Teweles asks: Was it weird being
directed by your dad?
Mandela: No, it wasn’t,
because I’ve been directed by him
almost my whole life. That’s 18
years. However, it was important
to know the difference between
my dad and Mario Van Peebles,
the director. You gotta show up
early… you gotta know your
lines… and I had to set an exam-
ple for the other actors, so they
could see that even the director’s
son was always prepared and very
professional.
KW: Mario, was it hard keeping
egos in check when you have stars
like Snoop Dogg, Salli Richard-
son, Michael Jai White and Tony
Lister in support roles.
MVP: One of the cool things
about the adults in the movie is
we’ve all been doing it for a
minute. Salli, Tiny and I have been
working together since Posse. And
Snoop’s been The Doggfather for
awhile. So, we’re all pretty secure
within ourselves. On top of that, it
wasn’t just my badass crew in the
movie, it was Snoop’s son [Corde
Broadus], P. Diddy’s son [Quincy
Melvin and Mario
Van Peebles
Brown], a Wayan’s kid [Gregg],
and a lot of talented youngsters
from That’s So Raven and Hannah
Montana, plus some professional
music and dance crews. So, the
adults were happy to be a part of a
cool movie being made that had
some nutritional value. And I
think they also knew that when
you make an independent movie
like We the Party, you really have
to put the money on the screen.
That’s why I only paid myself ten
dollars to write it and one dollar to
direct it. No one was there for the
money in the first place. That was
the wrong reason to be on the set.
Understand that Hollywood tends
to be a little reductive in its por-
trayals of people of color. It might
get behind a couple filmmakers
who are doing goofy comedies,
which is fine, but I also want kids
of all colors to have an alternative.