EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: JHawk and the cast of ‘We The Party’

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: JHawk and the cast of ‘We The Party’:


Courtesy of: Mycineworld.com

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Check out this exclusive interview with the cast of the new Mario Van Peebles film, We The Party. We got an inside look as to where the concept of the movie came from as well as how the music was created. Read on to go behind the screens with Mandela Van Peebles (“Hendrix Sutton”), Makaylo Van Peebles (“Obama”), Simone Battle (“Cheyenne Davis”), Patrick Cage (“Chowder”), JHawk (Music Producer/”DJ”), Nita Luckett (songwriter for Forever) and Mr. Mario Van Peebles (Director/”Mr. Sutton”).

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Interviewed By Jeremy ‘JHawk’ Hawkins with questions from Bryson Paul of Kaboom Magazine

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How are you guys doing? This is JHawk, JHawk Productions in the building reporting for Myspace. I’m sitting here with some of the people who made We The Party come to life, Mr. Mario Van Peebles, Mandela Van Peebles, Makaylo Van Peebles, Simone Battle, Patrick Cage, Nita Luckett and Justin Hunt.

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What was the inspiration for We The Party?



MARIO: Really, it came out of listening to my son. He was like, “we’ve got to go to these clubs. We’ve got to see what’s happening.”

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MANDELA: We were all trying to go to house parties, but they would get shut down way too early. So we were trying to go to some clubs and was like, “yo, dad? can you give us a ride to some?”

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MARIO: (overlapping) And I was like, hell no. You can’t go unless you bring me. And they were like, “dude, we can’t roll with our dad. That’s like, 5-O.” So finally they were like, “what about if you go, but not as our dad?”

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MANDELA: We gave him the skinny jeans, a real low fitted, a hoodie and everything.

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MARIO: So I rolled in with them and I said, “okay, you do you, and you talk like you talk. Do your thing. I just want to know you’re safe.” When we went to the different spots, they were playing YG and the New Boys, Pink Dollaz, the Rej3ctz, and of course Snoop Dogg. I was like, the kids were dancing like safe sex on the dance floor. So I just started writing notes, which became the basis for the script, We The Party. Then I was thinking back to the movies I love, like the original House Party and Breakfast Club. I said, well, [it's] 2012, and we’ve got some black folks, some Latinos, some white folks, and it’s time to bring the party together and get the party started yet again, and make it legit. The coolest thing we’ve been hearing when we play the movie at the high schools is how real it feels.

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How was the music chosen for the film?

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JHawk: Since I have a few songs in the film, I can speak to this directly. We pretty much just got a brief and we went in the studio, me and my writers (Nita and Justin), and I just did the music. but I let Nita and Justin come up with the lyrics, and they wrote for Mandela and Makaylo — MVP Boyz — who have two songs in the film, “Forever” and “Vegan.”

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NITA: All we were thinking was, we hope it will flow right or whatever, but we had a good time. Mario gave us some pointers about how to make it come alive, and how to just be ourselves and how to portray their character as well, so that they know exactly what they wanted to do. But they pulled it off real well and we’re happy with the scoring and everything about the movie. So the experience was great overall. What about you, J?

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JUSTIN: Uh, yeah, it was fantastic. You know, I love working with the boys and working with Mario, ’cause one thing I would say, their family brings a lot of energy. (laughs) And a lot of positive energy, so it was easy for us to work with them, especially in the studio, ’cause the studio can sometimes be a downer.

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How did you get into the movie?

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SIMONE: Well, actually my dance agency sent me on an audition for the role, because it was a hip-hop dance infused film. So I was like, oh, it’s perfect. It’s just like me. The character, Sheyenne, she’s a high school senior, and she’s going to college. It just felt so much like me, so when I auditioned for it, it was really natural, and something that I really wanted to be a part of. It was really fun to shoot the party scenes, the dancing, and it just had a good overall message.

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PATRICK: Well, I auditioned just like any other normal person did, and I came and did the character dramatically…which was wrong. But, she was like, um, no, come back Friday and make him funny. And I was like, cool! Totally forgot that I had a call-back Friday and scheduled my DMV appointment for my license on Friday. And I was like, alright, well, at least it’s early so I can go later. So I go in and Mario is there. So I read the lines and he was like, oh, can you stick around a little bit and read a couple more things? And I was like, alright, I guess.

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So I text my mom, can I stay a little bit? She’s like, “you’re going to read whatever he asks you to read. You’re going to get this, alright? Don’t worry about your license. You’ll get it another day.” So I kept reading. He was like, you know what? Can you stay a little bit longer? My sons are going to be back with lunch and it will be like five minutes max. I was like, alright cool, five minutes I can do–These guys showed up 20 minutes later, and then we did like this whole dancing thing, blocked through a scene. He was like, alright, thank you very much. And then I went home and an hour later I was Chowder, and it was definitely a life changing experience from that moment on.

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MAKAYLO: Um, well, see what happened was… actually, the character Obama was inspired by events that happened with me and Mandela throughout our high school year. We were in high school at an all private school, so that kind of was different when we all of a sudden had to go to a public school for a year. But me and Mandela both have different ways of integrating, okay. I don’t integrate too well. So, I stuck out a little bit. You know, Mandela can actually blend. He can talk to many different types of people. You know what I mean? So I ended up joining the debate team instead of the basketball team. I tried though, but all I saw was knees. I’m not that tall compared to the kids at the school. So eventually, time went on and I got the nick-name Obama.

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So when my dad was writing the script, he had me rehearse the script just to read it at first, but he had me rehearse it. He had me rehearse it more and more, and eventually I guess it kind of just stuck with me and so I got the part that way.

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What lessons/values did you walk away with?

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MARIO: The kids are getting the real shit, and how real it is, and the adults are going, yo, but I like what it’s got to say. When they watch the scene in the hot tub and Simone Battle says, if we’re going to get together, it’s going to be safe and it’s going to be special, and it’s not going to be now. So AIDS foundation came in and said, we want to support that. We know kids are going to do their thing, we want it to be safe. And so they bought blocks of tickets for testing. We didn’t know that when we made the movie. Someone else hit us with this earlier. They were looking at the poster, and they were like, wow, the dude in the center of your poster, YG is wearing a hoodie. reyvon Martin with this hoodie thing.

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Well, there’s a risk to that in that the studios wouldn’t do that right now. The studios will say, no. You’ve got a movie with young folks, it’s got to be PG. You’ve got to water it down, and we didn’t do that. But we know one thing, right? I always say there’s three loves in your life, you know? Love what you do. Try to love who you do it with, and love what you say with it. And when you do that, I think in We The Party, we got to do that. And whether you win or lose economically, you’re already rich.

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MANDELA: I just think it’s just crazy because YG’s character, CiCi, you can just tell he’s been prejudged his whole life and there’s just this negativity that you feel just by watching him. A lot of people made that mistake and judged him without getting to know him, but my character, Hendricks, he actually befriends CiCi, and we see that he has some consciousness to him, and it turns out to be a symbiotic relationship where I help him out and he helps me out.

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SIMONE: Well, I’m just really impressed by the message that Mario is sending to adolescents and especially minority adolescents, you know? In the film the smart girl is glamorized, going to college is glamorized, and getting bad grades is not cool. So I’m really happy that he is doing something bigger with the movie. Like, the movie is the vehicle for getting out a message to our youth who are coming up in the Obama era and that education is so important. And to have values and to have morals and character.

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PATRICK: Mine were definitely, money doesn’t buy you everything, never judge a book by its cover, and if we’re going to live on this earth, we need to take care of it.

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MAKAYLO: For me, although I live with my dad, he teaches great lessons, as you will see in the classroom scene. I think one of the most important ones that needs to go down is money doesn’t buy you everything. We’re in a generation where we are what we buy. We are what we own. You know? You wear fly clothes because you’re a fly dude. You know what I’m saying?

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That’s the way it is. But, you know, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, all of the great people that actually go down in history and I actually remember, that’s not what they’re known for. They’re known for what they do. That’s one of the things that I think this generation needs. You know?

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Just for fun, when did you first hear about Myspace?

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PATRICK: Basically, I was in fifth grade, and I was going home, and my homie was like, “Yo, I haven’t seen you in a minute. Hit me on Myspace.” And I was like, what the heck is a space of MY? Like, what is Myspace? So I went home and I borrowed my mom’s PC and made a Myspace account. Put up a picture and then it just kind of snowballed from there.

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SIMONE: I first heard about Myspace in, like, tenth grade–tenth or eleventh grade. And I remember we used to each lunch in one of the–in one of the science teacher’s rooms, and there were, like, computers in there. And I remember my–my friends–my girlfriends were like being all secretive, like, on the computer, and I was like, oh, what are you doing? And they’re like, oh, nothing. Like, you know, trying not to include me, and I was, like, what is that Myspace? What is this Myspace? And so when I went home that night I was, like, well, let me go see what Myspace is about, and, like, all of the cool kids were doing it, I guess. I don’t know.

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We The Party hits theaters nationwide this Friday, April 6th. This is JHawk with JHawk Productions and Myspace signing off. Stay tuned for my exclusive We The Party playlist coming soon on Myspace, featuring music from the artists in the film and exclusive tracks from the film.