50 GQ.CO.ZA OCTOBER 2017GQ&A
essentials
FINDING
YOUR VOICE
We spoke to Don Cheadle over a glass of whisky
about working with Kendrick, how to influence people
and where Hollywood is goingWords by Paul SephtonGQ: You recently starred in Kendrick Lamar’s new music video
for ‘DNA’. How did that come about?
DON CHEADLE: I’ve known Kendrick for a while. I met him through
Dr Dre, and I was actually thinking of casting him in Miles Ahead, which
ultimately didn’t work out, but that was good for both of us because
he got to go and do To Pimp A B ut ter fly and we got Keith Stanfield. He
wasn’t ready, and I was ver y impressed that he knew where his priorities
were and understood that it wasn’t something he just wanted to take on
to say he did it; he wanted to bring everything he could to it. So he said,
‘I’m kind of doing this album right now and I gotta focus on it,’ and I said
that’s fine. But Kendrick and I just stayed in touch over the years and we’d
hit each other up out of the blue and he’d be touring and I’d be on set.He literally hit me up out of the
blue and goes, ‘What are you
doing, do you want to shoot this
video next week?’ So I said yeah
and he said ‘I’ll send you the
concept and the song.’ I loved
the song and I was like ‘This is
great,’ so I said, ‘What do you
want me to do? ’ He was like,
‘Oh, I need you to spit this lyric,
this whole verse,’ and I was like,
‘That’s insane, that’s too much.’
And he said, ‘No, just learn as
much of it as you can.’ I didn’t
really have any concept of what
it was going to be and I got to
the set and he walked me
through it and then we just
launched into it.
He’s really creative and very
committed and we just talked
the other day and I asked,
‘What’s going on with you?’
and he said, ‘You know, I’m just
trying to figure out what I’m
going to do next with my
creativity and what kind of
stories I want to tell,’ and I don’t
even know if he meant
album- wise; you know, he may
take up painting, who knows.
He’s ver y Miles Davis in that he’s
just a font of creativit y and he’s
always looking for some way to
express himself.‘I’ve always been
someone who’s
tried to be platform
agnostic. I gravitate
towards the things
that are interesting
to me’