Game Changers: ‘One Night in Miami’ screenwriter Kemp Powers applauds Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James for carrying civil rights torch

One Night in Miami and Soul screenwriter, Kemp Powers, applauds Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James for carrying civil rights torch, in Yahoo Entertainment's latest episode of Game Changers.

Video Transcript

KEMP POWERS: A person shouldn't have to be Black to appreciate a story well told starring a Black protagonist. And I think we're starting to see that realized a lot more cinematically and on television and that's one of the things that really excites me as an artist.

- Yes, Cassius Marcellus Clay is the new heavyweight champion of the world, boys.

- Yes he is.

- And I don't even have a scratch on my face.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: So just to get it straight, you wrote two movies, they were released on the same day, and both have been very well received. Did you put this on a vision board or did you manifest this?

KEMP POWERS: No I didn't manifest any of it. I mean, because that would have involved me manifesting a global pandemic. [INAUDIBLE] kind of came together like this.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: And I know you originally wrote One Night in Miami as a play so take me through some of the highs and lows of adapting that for the screen.

KEMP POWERS: It was a pretty fun process actually. Just kind of tearing it apart and reimagining it, reconceptualizing it. Like OK, if I want to tell the same story, but tell it as a movie how would I do it? The essence of what makes it so special, at least in my mind, is being a fly on the wall for this private conversation. This idea that you have this metaphorical boxing ring. It's like you get to spend some time watching a verbal boxing match between these intellectual gladiators.

That was always something that I saw as potentially exciting in a film that I hadn't really had any opportunity to see. At least not one that positioned Black leads. I mean, you see films like 12 Angry Men. There's a rich history of these confined, debate-type features. It excited me to kind of try to bring that to something that was dealing with issues that I think have been important to the Black community for a long time and are still important today.

- Like our young brother said, there's no denying that greater forces were at work.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: That carrying the torch conversation is so important, especially now, right? And so I know even a few years ago, Jim Brown had criticized some top athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan for not doing enough for the Black community. So did you want to push that message forward even more towards Black celebrities right now? Like is that something you're hoping they take from this film?

KEMP POWERS: I just wanted people to ask themselves these questions. And then there's no correct answer to it, but I think we should all be asking ourselves, what greater purpose, what greater responsibility do we have? I mean, all human beings should be asking themselves that question in a healthy society that's meant to lift each other up, but I mean as Black people, we should be asking, especially if you've gotten any kind of success in your life. As opposed to sealing yourself off in a bubble, I think it is a question one should ask themselves.

What do I need to do to kind of move our community forward? What, if any, social responsibility do I have as an artist, as an athlete, as a public figure? It's just a question I think people should ask themselves. The wonderful thing is I think a lot of this generation of athletes, from Colin Kaepernick to LeBron James, they're doing it anyway. So I mean the message we came out of the greed is good 80s, when it was about just being spokespeople, and I think this new generation is kind of taking up that torch as far as I've observed.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: If you could write this story again, based in 2021, what black leaders would do center it around?

KEMP POWERS: Probably have Jay-Z, LeBron, it would be a different mix. It wouldn't just be guys. It would be someone like Ava DuVernay. Those are some people who I think are not afraid to inject social issues into their art or their sport or you know to make it about things that are bigger than themselves.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: We talk about that night in One Night in Miami. Those four men really did come together, but what they said is a mystery. So what triggered your imagination and how important is it for a writer to imagine those conversations and what happened in that room?

KEMP POWERS: Well, what triggered my imagination is just the conversations I've been having friends of mine. It is historical fiction. The night happened, but the conversation is totally fictional. But I wanted it to feel believable. And the believability I think comes from the emotion of having engaged in very similar debates, very similar arguments. A debate I once had with a buddy involved Stepin Fetchit. Lincoln Perry, the guy who played Stepin Fetchit, who, at the time that he was doing his performance, he was like the richest Black man in Hollywood. He was a millionaire. But he became a millionaire by portraying a character that promoted a negative stereotype that we could argue set Black people back decades.

So the argument was, well he's a millionaire versus how did you become a millionaire. If [INAUDIBLE] becoming a millionaire sets his entire community back, is it worth it to have to be able to say that Black person is a millionaire. And we had an incredibly vigorous debate about that and one people were on one side versus the other side. Is Black success enough no matter how that success comes about? If it's a Black business person and they're super duper rich, is that inspirational enough? And what if we find out that they made their money from blood diamonds?

You see what I'm saying? It's a real [LAUGHTER] and that was a foundational argument that kind of got deconstructed into the Malcolm Sam debate that I wrote in the film.

- A full time job.

- Working man, coming through.

- Yeah, Mom, but I--

- You're going to tell them yes, right?

- Don't worry, mom. I got a plan.

- You always got a plan.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: Soul and One Night in Miami talk about the Black male experience from very different viewpoints, a lot of different lenses. How important is it for Black writers during this time to write their own personal experiences? Because they are so diversified.

KEMP POWERS: Yeah, I mean what I love is that you are seeing a variety of viewpoints. We've been saying, screaming forever that Black people aren't monolithic, but the reality is in terms of the art until very recently, it can tend to fall into one lane. And I love-- I'm so excited by the fact that, just seeing a variety of different stories, in some cases, it's not even about being Black. It just features a Black character because a Black person is a human being.

I tell people all the time. They're like did you have to be Italian to appreciate The Godfather or Sopranos? Of course not. So similarly, a person shouldn't have to be Black to appreciate a story well told starring a Black protagonist. And I think we're starting to see that realized a lot more cinematically and on television and that's one of the things that really excites me as an artist. To know that there's so many stories that can be told with Black characters. Now none of us want to be limited to just writing a one race or one gender, but it's just exciting to see so many different executions in a way that just a few years ago would have seemed impossible.

BRITTANY JONES-COOPER: We've seen a lot of progress in Hollywood with the narrative that they're telling, but what would you like to see change, whether it's in front of the camera, behind the camera, directors, producers, what do you think needs to change in Hollywood?

KEMP POWERS: I definitely think it's about representation all the way up the food chain. It's much improved now coming across Black executives, but having diversity, racial diversity, gender diversity at the decision-making level. The audience and the public I think gives outsized influence to the artists making the work and don't realize how the final decision about who gets the money, how much money you get, it's the folks at that level. And when that's just loaded with a bumper crop of diversity the same way you're now seeing not just in front of the camera but now behind the camera and writing. When we can get that up to the executive level, then I think that that is-- at the decision-making level. God forbid. at the studio head level. Wow. I mean, that's when we'll, that's when we'll really be cooking.