Legendary actor John Canada Terrell’s journey through Black cinema spans decades of groundbreaking moments, from his breakthrough in Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” to his current role nurturing new talent. In this candid conversation with Rolling Out’s Star Studio, Terrell reflects on his evolution from an eager student of the craft to becoming a respected figure in the industry, sharing insights gained from his experiences at the Negro Ensemble Company and his time at Lincoln University.
Let us know the first movie that you got cast for
The breakthrough in 1986, it was Ernest Dickerson and Spike Lee. Spike was in grad school, it was Ernest’s film, that’s how I met Spike.
When you think of those young actors, and you have to trust the vision of a director, what’s it like when you create that special chemistry?
Invariably New York actors, the ones that are at the top of their game, they all know each other. Everybody who’s won a Tony Award, or whatever the case may be, so that theatrical community is very tight, and I came up in a generation that was really tight. The NEC was at the top of the food chain, you’re competing with everybody in the NEC, for eight years, I tried to get in, I mean, how do you compete with Samuel, Denzel and everybody that came out of the NEC became a major black movie star.
What was the NEC?
Negro Ensemble Company, that was the Premier Black Theater Company, that if you didn’t go to Juilliard or come out of Yale Drama School, those are places that you were fast tracked just the way it was set up then. So that’s what you strive to do, to be as good as them, and stay, get the same accolades, and to bring your art form up to a level where it’s at that level you had something to reach for, cause you’d run into Denzel at Equity Office, the Screen Actors guild, you see how people respond like, “Wow.” and wonder if I could handle that?
Just name a few of the luminaries that you have gleamed. What would you say about Spike Lee?
One, he was instrumental in my film career going to another level, I went with him to the Cannes Film Festival. “She’s Gotta Have It”, that changed my life, I had 2 other films I co-starred playing there at the same time, I don’t know about the other cast members, but it helped my career, and I work more than all of them put together. I’ve had to defend and articulate a point of view with the riff between Tyler Perry and Spike several times on camera, I would never slander another black man on camera, but I understand the dynamics between the two. Spike’s a real filmmaker, can’t take that away from him, and black Nationalist, for real whether or not he’s loyal to the people that came out the gate with him, that’s a whole nother conversation, but I appreciate his impact in my life, I just wish there were more loyalty.
For those who’ve never been to Cannes. What was it like when you went to Cannes?
It’s the biggest film festival in the world, it’s international, now I came out of an era, 60s, 70s, where I was influenced by 007, who’s the coolest guy on film. So that was a prototype or archetype for me, I wanted to learn how to fight good, look good, stay in shape, and everything happened at Casino Royale. Here I was in the Riviera, I thought I died and went to heaven, it was a hell of an experience for that, it’s hard to even put it in words.
When you think about New York, what does that mean for you?
I just moved back to New York, to be back in New York after so many years, I’m working at home, I teach martial arts in Harlem, I’m a supervisor for a shift at the Marriott Hotel at the Victoria Theater, right next to the Apollo, so to walk by there four or five days a week, and people are just like, “Oh, you!”
When you think of Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee, what kind of love did you see with those leading men and women?
You just mentioned two people that were an integral part of instilling theater in my heart, I saw “Purlie Victorious” years ago, pre-teen, and Melba Moore was the ingenue, Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee, it was an outdoor theater in Philadelphia, and it planted a seed, and then, when I wound up at Lincoln University, Gil Scott Heron was there, that changed my major, and that was it.
Going to an HBCU. What was that like for you?
I know my reasons for going, simply because Boomer and some African leaders went there, Langston Hughes went there, and there was a history and a legacy of black intellectuals, let me get fed off that, and I came out of that generation that was protesting, was a product of that, so intellectually, where else was I going to go?
If somebody ask you to finish the sentence “John Canada Terrell is,” what would you want them to say?
A man still trying to seek wisdom and grow up, be a better man, better human.
If you could play any song with any person that’s been a musician that you’ve met, who would it be? And why?
Probably John Coltrane, to me he’s a music legends that I hold to a very high esteem.
Your latest project that you do have that you have starred in. Tell me about it.
It’s a great little comedy, it’s all over the place, I play a club owner in a high crime area, and my long lost friend from the Kumbaya days of Woodstock popped up in the black community uninvited in a very dangerous area, and I’m glad to see him, but his presence could get me killed. I’m dancing that thin line, but I’m glad to see him, and then our adventure with finding out who done it at my flow. So it’s a mystery, missing person, it was fun to do.
