This was one of my most anticipated interviews ever. Spike Lee. The man who directed DO THE RIGHT THING, MALCOLM X, JUNGLE FEVER, CLOCKERS (a personal favorite), HE GOT GAME, SUMMER OF SAM, INSIDE JOB – to name a few – sitting in the same room with me? Too cool. Lee is one of the most unique American filmmakers of our time, a consistently interesting storyteller willing to take risks with his films, visually and narratively. One of those filmmakers you can just tell doesn’t care what the masses think of his sometimes obtuse style; he’s got something to say and he’s going to say it his way. We need more directors like that.
His willingness to avoid the norm is what makes him a pretty cool choice for the OLDBOY remake; the material is anything but mainstream. (I still can’t fathom rumored directors Justin Lin or Steven Spielberg tackling this lurid genre piece.) In the video below we’ll talk about his reasons for wanting on this film, the trickiness of balancing the film’s many tones and, most humorously, the strangeness of Sharlto Copley.