AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Don Cheadle is spending his summer on Broadway starring in "Proof."
DON CHEADLE: It's about a family. It centers on a young woman who has or has not written a groundbreaking proof. Catherine is the daughter of a math genius and may or may not be one herself.
RASCOE: The Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by David Auburn was first performed 26 years ago and was adapted into a movie a few years later. But the Broadway play now running is a reimagining of sorts. The entire cast is nonwhite. Don Cheadle plays the math genius Robert. His daughter, Catherine, is played by Ayo Edebiri and his other daughter, Claire, by Kara Young. Jin Ha plays a graduate student who befriends Catherine.
CHEADLE: When you have a Black family that's centered in this, I think there's a lot of things that hit a little different because I think a lot of times, you want to say, well, we're going to do it with a Black family, like, these classics that are traditionally white families and center white people. Now we're going to - you get to do it now. And in some ways, it's not elevating it. They're overlooking a lot of things that kind of don't make sense with a Black family. With this, it was really interesting because I can only think of a couple of things that were changed in this play to address cultural things. One of them was the interaction with the police.
RASCOE: Yeah.
CHEADLE: The original play, when they talk about how Catherine interacted with the police, I think they say she was abusive. She pushed one of the police officers. And when we did the reading, we said, we got to kind of think about that. How would that actually work? And does the next scene take place at the morgue?
RASCOE: Yes. (Laughter) Exactly. Like, it would be much more serious.
CHEADLE: Much more serious, you know. And there was also something about her washing her hair that night. And we were like, if that Black woman washed her hair that night, that's the night.
RASCOE: That's the night.
(LAUGHTER)
CHEADLE: That scene is now over.
RASCOE: That's (laughter)...
CHEADLE: She's not going outside on the porch to have a conversation with you.
RASCOE: No, that's it.
CHEADLE: The night's done.
RASCOE: So, I mean, when you're playing Robert, he's at this point where he is falling into mental illness, and he's transitioning to someone who almost - who needs care. How did you approach that?
CHEADLE: Well, that journey is navigated on paper by David Auburn, the author. And then, of course, you bring yourself to that and your life experiences and things you've observed. I've experienced things, you know, inside my family, things that my friends have gone through and investigating schizophrenia and, you know, reading about how it presents. And I find, for Robert, you're seeing, like, cracks.
RASCOE: One thing that came up so much was this idea of peaking and that you reach this moment of success where everything else is, like, downhill from there. Like, it's not going to - you know, you've done everything that matters. And we actually have a clip of a conversation that you, as Robert, have with your daughter.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "PROOF")
CHEADLE: (As Robert) I was starting to imagine I was finished. Catherine, I mean really finished. Don't get me wrong, I was, you know, grateful I could have a life, go to my office, but secretly, I was terrified I'd never work again. Did you know that?
RASCOE: Why do you think peaking is such a big fear for your character?
CHEADLE: I mean, who's it not a fear for? Every person has a moment where they're like, oh, is it over? Like, did I - am I the best I was ever going to be? And in Robert's case, when you're done what you believe is your best work at 25, and you still have 50 years of life left, you know, you're like, what does it mean now? And how disappointing is it now? And how frustrating is it now? I think Robert's really frustrated.
RASCOE: I mean, is that something that you worry about as an actor in Hollywood? I mean, age is, like, so, you know - I mean, you're 61. Like, is that something that you think about?
CHEADLE: Ironically, I'm probably the busiest now that I've ever been. For actors, it's always feast or famine. And of course, it's impossible to decouple your age from the kinds of roles that you're going to have and how you are seen in the industry - way more for women. They talk about, you know, you're just there to show that guys have sex, and it's like, the part isn't even anything. It's like - so I think men have a little easier role with that. There's a whole subgenre of older guys in action movies.
RASCOE: (Laughter) In action movies, yeah, yeah.
CHEADLE: We're all good. Let's Liam Neeson this all the way to the end.
RASCOE: (Laughter) Yeah, yeah. Over the course of the play, of course, Robert gradually succumbs to mental illness. It's tough to watch. You know, Catherine and Claire, Robert's daughters, are dealing with this.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "PROOF")
AYO EDEBIRI: (As Catherine) You fly in for the weekend and decide you want to help. You're late.
KARA YOUNG: (As Claire) I...
EDEBIRI: (As Catherine) Where have you been? Where were you five years ago? You weren't helping then.
YOUNG: (As Claire) I was working.
EDEBIRI: (As Catherine) I was here. I lived with him alone.
YOUNG: (As Claire) I was working 14-hour days. I paid every bill here.
RASCOE: It's tearing the family apart. Claire was paying for everything, but, you know, Catherine was the caretaker. There is something very universal about that, right?
CHEADLE: Absolutely. They're both essential, and it all mattered, and it was all important. Not what I did was important and what you did didn't matter or what, you know?
RASCOE: But that's so hard to reach, right?
CHEADLE: Absolutely. And it's not something that you're going to reach under the most stress you've ever been under. For me, you go back to thinking about how they were raised. I would imagine that it was a lot about scoring points, being right, what it means to be a success 'cause, you know, Claire walks in. She's not married to Rahim (ph). She's married to Mitch.
RASCOE: Yes (laughter).
CHEADLE: So we kind of have an idea of what Claire's journey has been comparative to what Catherine's has or hasn't been. But for their dynamic, I imagine what we're seeing play out is something that they've been playing out since they were children.
RASCOE: Well, I mean, ultimately, what do you feel like you learned from this? Like, I mean, did it teach you something about fatherhood, legacy? Do you feel like you have gotten or left the - not - you still have a lot more legacy to give. But do...
CHEADLE: Oh, she's about to - you about to put me in the dirt.
RASCOE: I'm not putting you in the dirt. But I'm not...
CHEADLE: She's like, being at the end, being past your peak and at the end of your rope...
RASCOE: (Laughter) No.
CHEADLE: Do you wish there was anything that you had done differently?
RASCOE: (Laughter) No.
CHEADLE: Do you have regrets about the life that you've lived, being 1,000 years old?
RASCOE: (Laughter) That's not what I'm asking.
CHEADLE: That's it. I'm out.
RASCOE: (Laughter) That's not what I'm asking.
CHEADLE: (Laughter).
RASCOE: I'm asking, do you feel like you have gotten the props that you deserve? And that...
CHEADLE: All right, she's turning it into flowers now, went from fertilizer to flowers.
RASCOE: Do people respect your...
CHEADLE: Go ahead.
RASCOE: Do people respect your legacy?
CHEADLE: I don't know. People come up - I'm saying, I think - I always take everything with a grain of salt. I don't believe anybody.
RASCOE: It's better that way. They say, don't believe them when they love you, don't believe them when they hate you.
CHEADLE: Don't believe any of it. Just do your thing, put your head down, do your work, listen to yourself. You know if you're doing it. You know if you're, like, showing up or not. You know, I did a movie like "Hotel Rwanda," and that had a life that went much further beyond just the movie because a congressional delegation came to see it, and they wanted me to speak out about things happening in Darfur.
And I went to Darfur, and I saw what was going, and I, like, leaned into this pool of advocacy that was happening before I got there. I knew that I was the bright shiny thing that could get attention, that could then put the attention to where it needed to be. Other than that, I'm trying to be a storyteller, and that's my job.
RASCOE: You know, I don't want to go too deep into the fact that you have had a long career, but you have had a long career.
CHEADLE: I have.
RASCOE: And the good thing about it is that when you, you know, Google Don Cheadle, you don't see, like, a whole bunch of controversy. You don't see a whole - it's very few...
CHEADLE: Oh, that's coming.
RASCOE: Yeah. No.
CHEADLE: That's on its way.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
CHEADLE: Yeah. I saved that for the last three holes on the golf course.
RASCOE: You don't have a whole lot of scandals. Like, do you have, like, one, like, quick trick on, like, avoiding, like, scandal in Hollywood?
CHEADLE: Play the tape to the end. It's like, when you write that email that you really want to get at somebody. Write the email. Write it. Count to 10. Really play the tape to the end. Get to the - OK, she said this. Then I was like, oh, you ain't - and I said, and then I was like, I said, you ain't duh-duh-duh (ph).
And then you said all that, and then you push send, and then she got blowed up in the spot, and then she blew you up in the spot, and then your boss got involved, and then his boss got involved, and then somebody came in and said, Ayesha, you're going to have to clean out your desk. You're like, What? I just told her that she was a - like, no, it went to a thing, and now HR's involved. And...
RASCOE: OK, so think it all the way through, not just the next move.
CHEADLE: Yeah. So see the movie all the way through. Not just how the feel - 'cause the feel is - ooh, it feels good in the moment.
RASCOE: (Laughter) Yeah. In the moment, you want to say this, this and this, but you got to wait. Take a beat, take a moment, think it through. I need this job. I got to pay my mortgage.
CHEADLE: I have a family. The sex is going to feel good in the moment.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
CHEADLE: And then right afterwards, I'm going to be like, oh, no, I have to kill this person.
RASCOE: You should have counted up the cost. You know that song? "As We Lay." We should have counted up the cost, but instead, we got lost.
CHEADLE: We got lost 'cause we didn't play the tape to the end.
RASCOE: That's actor...
CHEADLE: (Laughter).
RASCOE: ...Don Cheadle talking about his new play in which he stars. It's called "Proof," and it runs on Broadway through July 19. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
CHEADLE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AS WE LAY")
SHIRLEY MURDOCK: (Singing) As we lay, we forgot about... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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