< Delroy Lindo's Essential Performances

Publish date: 2024-05-02

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AISHA HARRIS, HOST:

Delroy Lindo gave one of last year's most critically acclaimed onscreen performances as a troubled Vietnam War vet in Spike Lee's "Da 5 Bloods." He's already racked up several awards and could score an Oscar nod when nominations are announced later this month. His career spans decades of memorable characters, including everything from a menacing drug lord to a cunning attorney, in some of your favorite movies and shows. If Lindo is in it, you're almost certainly in for a treat.

I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about some of Delroy Lindo's essential performances on NPR's POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR. So don't go away.

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HARRIS: Welcome back. Joining us from her home in Brooklyn is Soraya Nadia McDonald, culture critic for The Undefeated. It's great to have you back, Soraya.

SORAYA NADIA MCDONALD: Thank you. It's nice to be back.

HARRIS: So Delroy Lindo is one of those performers you probably recognize as that dude. Even if he's only on screen for a few scenes, he tends to stand out. At the beginning of his career, he had a couple of small parts in forgettable movies before turning his attention to the stage for several years. He made his Broadway debut in "'Master Harold' ...And The Boys" in 1982 and earned a Tony nom for playing Herald Loomis in August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come And Gone" in 1988.

When he returned to the screen in the early '90s, he really broke out to bigger audiences in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X," where he portrayed West Indian Archie, a gangster and early mentor to the civil rights leader.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MALCOLM X")

DELROY LINDO: (As West Indian Archie) You don't ever write anything down. File it up here, like I do. If the man don't have any paper, he'll never have any proof. Eh?

DENZEL WASHINGTON: (As Malcolm X) Yeah. Yeah, I dig.

HARRIS: He'd go on to make a few more movies with Lee, including most recently, of course, "Da 5 Bloods," for which he's received perhaps the most widespread acclaim of his career. Now, a profile in The Guardian last year, I think, aptly described his career as consisting of, quote, "mostly smaller roles in big movies and bigger roles in smaller movies," unquote. So we're going to talk about some of those performances we feel really tap into Lindo's artistry. This is not by any means intended to be a exhaustive list of his must-see work, just a small sampling.

So, Soraya, I know you and I have previously kind of gushed over Delroy Lindo in a episode for PCHH about "Da 5 Bloods" specifically.

MCDONALD: Yes.

HARRIS: And while we're not going to be focusing on that performance, we are going to be focusing on a couple others. But before we get into that, what is your sense of Delroy Lindo just as a performer? What has drawn you the most to him over the years?

MCDONALD: So there are a few things. I think one of them is just his physical presence on screen and, like, just the work that he does with his body. He's very tall, and he really uses his height. He uses the sort of ranginess of his arms, I think, in a lot of his work. But the other thing I come back to is I always have to remind myself that he's not American. And there are plenty of British actors who are great at playing Americans, but I really think Delroy has this quality of being able to just sort of disappear into whatever character he's playing.

Delroy, he has this - he's extremely memorable, right? Like, he has a very memorable face. He has this kind of, like, subtle crest at the top of his head, and he has this really strong jawline. What we see in his performances that we actually end up appreciating so much is his self-awareness of, like, how he shows up on screen.

HARRIS: Yeah, I'm glad you pointed out that Delroy Lindo is technically British. He was born in the U.K., and, you know, he spent a lot of his younger years there, but he's lived in the U.S. for most of his life. And his family is also West Indian, so he comes from all of these - he has all of these different cultural backgrounds that I think really feed into all the different characters he's been able to play, especially someone like West Indian Archie in "Malcolm X," which I think is great.

So let's actually start with "Clockers," which is a movie that I feel like is one of Spike Lee's sort of lesser-known, under-the-radar films. I think obviously cinephiles know this movie, but I think it's not always the first movie that a lot of the general public thinks about when they think of Spike Lee.

MCDONALD: It's definitely slept on.

HARRIS: It's definitely slept on. And this movie is based off of Richard Price's novel of the same name, and it stars Mekhi Phifer as Strike, who is basically the protege of Delroy Lindo's character. Rodney is a drug lord, and Mekhi Phifer's character is one of the street-level hustlers who works for him. And they have a really interesting dynamic where Delroy Lindo's character takes on this sort of father figure role. He owns a storefront, and he entices a lot of the young boys in the neighborhood to work for him and also to, like, bring them into the drug game.

What I love about this performance is - you talked about his face and how, like, expressive it is, and he's really using his expression here. There are moments later on in the film where he definitely, like, has that moment that you expect all the drug lords in movies to have, where they're, like, breaking things or getting really upset and angry.

MCDONALD: And he's terrifying.

HARRIS: He's terrifying. But most of the movie, that terrifying nature comes from just how kind of laid back he is for most of the movie. He doesn't raise his voice very much. He is very pragmatic. He's very kind of steely and methodical. And there's a scene between Rodney and Strike where Rodney is sort of, like, giving his ethos of the world and how he feels about the drug game, and I think it's just, like, a really great moment. They're sitting in a car together, and it's sort of, like, him giving Mekhi Phifer's character some advice.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CLOCKERS")

LINDO: (As Rodney) Crack will bring it right on in the light. Man, I don't care you Black, white, Chinese, rich, poor - you take that first hit, you on a mission, and that mission gonna never end. Even when the house, money, loved ones gone and they send you to the joint, you still gonna try to cop.

MEKHI PHIFER: (As Strike) No doubt.

LINDO: (As Rodney) Only time it ends, Strike, that mission, when you 6 feet under.

HARRIS: He just has this very smooth voice. And if you look at it in the context of the movie that he did with Spike before this, "Crooklyn," where he plays, like, the struggling musician father who - you know, he's not perfect, but he's also not a drug dealer. And to see the sort of switch from him being able to play that role to this, I think, just makes this role such a great encapsulation of Delroy Lindo's ability to really jump around from character to character.

MCDONALD: Yeah, he definitely has range. And I think every time he works with Spike, I think, in particular, it's just really satisfying. He kind of gets to color with, like, all the colors in his crayon box. You know, the thing with "Clockers" is it is very much, you know, this sort of exploration of almost, like, adopted fatherhood, like, in this particular setting that they're in, in Brooklyn. Not only is it that he's basically playing this father figure to Mekhi's character, but then you see how - the things that Mekhi has picked up from him and is now, like, passing on to a younger generation that he's also trying to recruit into the drug game himself.

When Delroy is introduced in "Clockers," you don't actually get the sense that he's done anything illicit at all. He has this sort of coolness about him. You would just think that he is sort of the upstanding guy in the neighborhood who hasn't actually done anything wrong, which is a great front if you're going to be, you know, a small-time drug lord.

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HARRIS: Yeah. So "Clockers" is, you know, one of those movies that I think Soraya and I will both recommend people see if you haven't or revisit if you haven't in a while. After "Clockers," he kind of moved into the role of playing, you know, those smaller parts in bigger movies and bigger in smaller movies. He's in "Get Shorty" in 1995. He plays a drug dealer-slash-limo service owner - similar role. In "Cider House Rules," he plays a migrant worker. And then we have another big role for him in 2000 with "Gone In 60 Seconds." Soraya, tell us a little bit about that role for him.

MCDONALD: Yeah, so he is essentially, you know, the smart guy in this car-thief caper that stars Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie. And they are basically sort of part of this gang that they decide to get back together to go steal some more cars because Nicolas Cage's brother has gotten in trouble, and Cage is basically trying to bail him out with cars that he's stealing for someone else, right? And so you've got Delroy playing Detective Roland Castlebeck. And some of the aesthetics in this movie are just absolutely ridiculous, particularly Angelina's hair, I think, in this movie (laughter).

But he sort of provides this kind of grounding presence - one, of, like, what the stakes are. But he's not a sadistic cop. You almost get the sense that he has respect for the art of this group's thievery (laughter). You know, they kind of keep him on his toes.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GONE IN 60 SECONDS")

LINDO: (As Detective Roland Castlebeck) Two nights ago, we snare these 13 fresh stolens waiting for export. And at the time, I'm thinking, this feels like Randall Raines. Now, he didn't have your panache, your flash. But just felt like Randall Raines. And now here you are.

NICOLAS CAGE: (As Randall Raines) Look - I don't know what you boys are looking for, but I just got back, OK? It was a family emergency. Now, that's the truth.

LINDO: (As Roland) Family emergency - yeah, I got a family emergency, too, Randall.

MCDONALD: Even when, you know, you put him in archetypical roles that you see over and over again in Hollywood, he finds something that still makes you want to watch them. The other thing, I think, that's really interesting about Delroy is his voice. Like, often when we're thinking about that, we're coming back to this idea of his restraint. He's not particularly shouty as an actor, and he's very sort of confident in relying on the nuances in his facial expressions and his body language to kind of get his point across.

And so even though he's not necessarily raising his voice very much in "Gone In 60 Seconds," if at all, he still has almost a kind of parental quality in the way that he's relating to Nicolas Cage's character that's basically, I think, a through line of his career, right? He's a father in "Da 5 Bloods." It's something that just feels very natural for him to kind of live in that space, even though he's playing these characters who are very different.

HARRIS: I think that leads us really well into his - one of his more recent roles, which I think a lot of other viewers will probably be familiar with, and that is his role as Adrian Boseman on "The Good Fight," which was a spinoff of "The Good Wife" and currently streams on what used to be CBS All Access and is now Paramount+. And he plays an attorney who offers Christine Baranski's character, Diane Lockhart, a chance to work with him at his law firm. Soraya, what is it about this character that you love? I know you are a huge "Good Fight" fan.

MCDONALD: I am. I mean, I think it's his cleverness. He runs things, right? He is the HNIC.

HARRIS: (Laughter).

MCDONALD: And so one of the things that's just pleasurable about "The Good Fight," aside from, like, the very witty dialogue, is just the sort of costuming feast that it provides. He's got his double Windsor-knotted silk ties. He's old school. He still wears a waistcoat under his suit jacket. And so he's just, like, extremely sort of well put together in that kind of successful Chicago, moneyed, Black kind of way, you know?

And then, of course, you have this wonderful scene that he does where Adrian is basically on a fictive, you know, cable news show. You know, he's in this debate that you can see - he's exasperated that he has to even deal with this at all because it's basically a debate about racism and the N-word.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE GOOD FIGHT")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Now, as a white lawyer, what am I supposed to think of that?

LINDO: (As Adrian Boseman) I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I think Chuck is pointing out a double standard here, Adrian. Take hip-hop - and we've talked about this on the show before. You have African American rappers saying N-word this and N-word that, but a Caucasian can't.

LINDO: (As Adrian) So say it.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Say what?

LINDO: (As Adrian) Say the word you want to say.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) I'm not saying that I want to say it; I'm just saying that I can't.

LINDO: (As Adrian) Sure you can. Say it. Say it right now. I will say it with you.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, laughter) OK, this is hypocritical. You know we can't.

LINDO: (As Adrian) Sure you can. This is America. Both of you, say it.

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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) All right, I think we...

MCDONALD: You can see his irritation that he's having to address this at all, but at the same time, that there's also a sophistication that he's bringing to this that he knows that the hosts can't match up to. And somehow, you know, Delroy manages to just marshal all of that in that scene, which is why I think he's so memorable, even if he just shows up for a few minutes at a time or he just does a few scenes in a big movie because he always makes the most of them.

HARRIS: Yeah, I mean, he was so good that when it went around on the Internet, some people thought it was actually, like, a real clip...

(LAUGHTER)

MCDONALD: Exactly.

HARRIS: ...A real scene. Now, granted, of course, you could also chalk that up to just people on the Internet not being able to Google. But still (laughter), I think - I still think it's partially a testament to just how good he is and how convincing he is in that role.

MCDONALD: Yeah.

HARRIS: I am just so glad we had this conversation. And also, I'm very excited for the upcoming Western, Black - like, Black cast Western that is supposed to be coming out soon...

MCDONALD: Yes.

HARRIS: ...Where Delroy Lindo is going to be acting alongside people like Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, LaKeith Stanfield...

AISHA HARRIS AND SORAYA NADIA MCDONALD: Regina King.

HARRIS: Like - (laughter).

MCDONALD: Can you imagine him just, like, swaggering, you know, down the middle of the street in, like, cowboy boots and spurs with, like, six-shooters? Oh, man.

HARRIS: Yes, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: Well, we want to know what you think about your favorite Delroy Lindo performances. You can find us at facebook.com/pchh and on Twitter at @pchh. And that brings us to the end of our show. Soraya, thank you so much for being here and gushing some more with me about Delroy Lindo.

MCDONALD: Any time.

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: And before we go, we wanted to let you know that we are going to be doing an episode about the best Muppets, and we want to know which Muppets you think are the best. You can vote for your favorite Muppets at npr.org/muppets. Again, vote for your favorite Muppet at npr.org/muppets. And of course, thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. And we will see you all tomorrow.

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