Don Cheadle: The Sweet Science Of Life 

With a career spanning decades, Don Cheadle has embodied bold, brave, and every round character in between, but on this day, the starring role he takes on is himself. Who would’ve guessed that the young, handsome, bright-eyed talent who portrayed the dynamic Ice Tray on The Fresh Prince Of Belair in 1990 would rise to become one of Hollywood’s most notable alchemists of Black excellence, recognizable voices, and in-demand talents in front of the camera and beyond? 

In reality, he himself would have likely made this prediction with no qualms. 

“I started in theater, went to California Institute of the Arts, and did 35 plays. [I] Wrote plays, directed plays, got out of school, went and did theater around the country, produced plays, did TV early. I’ve been working professionally since 1985, so I’ve been very fortunate, blessed, lucky, any other words you want to use to have the opportunity to play a multitude of different things,” reflects Cheadle to VIBE as a fast-paced photoshoot dwindles to a chat over leftover sandwiches, salad, and room temperature coffee.

Born Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. in Kansas City, Mo., in 1964, the actor was raised by his mother Bettye Cheadle, a teacher, and father, Donald Frank Cheadle Sr. a psychologist. He moved around with his family before landing in Denver and graduating from high school. After earning his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the CalArts, he embarked on a journey to stardom.

Early roles landed by the lauded actor include a recurring spot in Fame (1982) and feature film roles in Dennis Hopper’s Colors (1988) and John Irvin’s Hamburger Hill (1987). Cheadle’s star began to shine when a co-starring turn alongside Denzel Washington in Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) earned him critical acclaim. 

His career steadily expanded, taking him from a buzzing entertainer to an acclaimed artist, telling stories across television and film with care and nuance. Cheadle became a staple across comedy, drama, and action genres, with memorable moments on the silver screen and in theaters. A household name, audiences may recognize him from The Bernie Mac Show, Boogie Nights, ER, or maybe Crash,  the Avengers franchises…how about Oceans 11 or 13? Don’t forget Miles Ahead, which he also directed, and Rosewood. 

Frankly, there’s probably a stellar and completely singular Cheadle project for most cinephiles. Over his 40-plus years and counting as actor, director, and producer, Cheadle has earned 119 major award nominations and 38 wins, with recognition from the BET Awards, the BAFTA Awards, the Critics Choice Awards, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globes, the GRAMMY Awards, the NAACP Image Awards, the Kids Choice Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and many more. 

A crown jewel in the entertainment industry, he is EGOT nominated, counting his 2005 Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards for his passionate portrayal in Hotel Rwanda, which he followed up with continued advocacy in Rwanda and Somalia. Now, once again, in a different setting, he is charged with depicting another real-life story with dramatized truth, nuance, and intention. 

On VIBE’s day with him, a blistering heat wave blazes through Los Angeles. It’s a mid-July morning when the veteran actor meets a bustling team at Dust Studios in Hollywood. Opting to drive himself to set, Cheadle arrives solo to a complete crew of over a dozen people and instantly raises the vibrations before bouncing between an intricate setup of cameras, backdrops, and set pieces. 

Cheadle moves with ease, as smooth as the jazz playing over the speakers, ensuring all present get a personal hello. Subtle smile lines delicately carve his glowing mahogany skin as multiple daps, hugs, and handshakes are shared. As he floats through the studio, Cheadle’s serious yet soothing mood is contagious. When the 59-year-old emerges from the dressing room, he flexes a sharp lineup, smug smirk, and sleek, fall-ready threads from Yves Saint Laurent. From head to toe, it’s clear: the cool has arrived. 

Not intimidated by multiple cameras capturing his every move, the endless flashing lights, and an off-beat leak dripping from a ceiling pipe into a plastic bucket, the veteran actor remains in tune with an internal rhythm familiar to fans worldwide. Spinning, singing, dancing, and smizing, Cheadle is far from shy, chatting and snapping photos with me and lead photographer Sage East in between shots. Always adding swagger, he remains in motion as Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, and other contemporary jazz and soul artists set the ultimate groove. 

Later, seated across from one another on a creased leather sectional, his posture changes into something like super present ease as we bounced questions and answers back and forth—indicating an uncanny comfort with strangers or unreal self-composure.

Preparing to take on the role of J.D. Hudson in Peacock’s limited series, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, inspired by the true crime story that changed Atlanta history—ushering in its era as the “Black Mecca.” Cheadle’s own life story begins only a couple of years prior to the heist dramatized on screen. 

“All of it was new to me. I mean, of course, I knew about [Muhammad] Ali and I knew about him refusing to go to Vietnam and fight in that war, and who he became at that moment and what he meant to the culture,” he says. “But I didn’t know anything about this fight or what was happening in Atlanta at that time … that aspect of Atlanta as a cultural center for Black people in the specific way that it was.”

A lot has changed in Atlanta since Chicken Man, the central character and hustler (depicted by Kevin Hart) who aims for the top in Peacock’s new series Fight Night. The Peach State capital of today is vastly different socially, politically, and economically. However, some of the themes orchestrated through conflicts explored in the fictional series have sustained as evergreen sources of both tension and triumph. 

Fight Night, executive produced by Will Packer, is inspired by the true-crime podcast of the same name. In the 13-episode audio series, host Jeff Keating travels back to Oct. 26, 1970, the night Ali defeated Jerry Quarry (known as the “Great White Hope.”) It also happened to be Ali’s return to the ring following his ban for his refusal to enter Vietnam War’s draft. And of course, that night, Chicken Man’s golden ticket turned to pyrite in one instant as his planned fight party transformed into a heist, with many believing he set up the entire ordeal.

Keating, an executive producer of the limited series, learned the story of the night’s events from his father decades ago, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constituion. With additional research gathered from deep dives at the local library, he penned a documentary and scripted film that he shopped for years, imagining Jamie Foxx or Don Cheadle as the lead. Eventually, Keating teamed with Packer and iHeartMedia to bring the podcast to fruition, calling the partnership a “pleasant surprise.”

“We actually thought it could be a movie,” explained Packer. “We still think it has viability as a movie.” But the opportunity to turn it into a true-crime podcast came up first.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, before the start of 2020’s global pandemic, Hart revealed that he had initially planned a remake of the Sidney Poitier–Bill Cosby comedy vehicle Uptown Saturday Night with himself and the late Chadwick Boseman, inspired by the story explored in Fight Night. It was Packer’s idea to bring the project back to life by telling it through a different lens. 

“It was kind of a sour spot attached to that world, and I didn’t want to touch it at all—being that me and Chadwick were so close,” Hart explained to the magazine. “I said that the only way I would do it is if we could turn it into a drama.”

Now, translated into that picture-perfect dramatization, Fight Night takes the epic story from a chapter of  “if you know, you know” Atlanta lore to a captivating whodunit. Also starring Taraji P. Henson, with Chloe Bailey, Lori Harvey, Terrence Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, Dexter Darden, Clifton Powell, Melvin Gregg, Myles Bullock, Artrece Johnson, and Jalyn Hall, the project unites extraordinary Black talent across generations.

Cheadle was also glad to spend time on set working with and offering guidance to some of Fight Night’s newer, rising stars. 

“The woman who worked as our acting/dialect coach had an acting class, and I sat in on that one day. I did just a little bit of tutoring and mentoring with her students,” explained Cheadle. “I think of the cast and the new people that I hadn’t met and the actors that are coming up, I spent a little bit of time with Myles Bullock and Sinqua Walls.”

He added, “I had a really good time. It was a very interesting period to lean into. I think there are a lot of untapped stories, not only from Atlanta but definitely from that time period and in our history. It’s interesting to see what will come out of it. Maybe it will spark interest in that era in general, and there’ll be more stuff to do. I had a good time working with everybody. More than wanting to necessarily delve into that period, I want to work with some of these guys again.”

Peacock’s Fight Night premiered on Sept. 5, with Shaye Ogbonna as creator and showrunner alongside Jason Horwitch. Bryan Smiley and Mike Stein for Kevin Hart’s HartBeat Productions, Packer, and Sabrina Wind for Will Packer Media, Conal Byrne, Will Pearson, and Carrie Lieberman for iHeartPodcast. 

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

VIBE: What was it about Fight Night that made you want to be a part of it?

Don Cheadle: It was just a very interesting project about an event that I knew very little about. That’s always fun … when you get a historical story and build out from that. And, of course, the company you keep is important when you’re doing a project like this. Getting to work with these people … you know, Sam [L. Jackson], Taraji [P. Henson], Terrance [Howard], Kevin [Hart]. I’ve worked with all of them before and to find something where we all work together and create in this cool story set in this cool time around this obscure event…Everything said yes.

How much personal research did you do on Atlanta in the 1970s and the person you portray?

A lot. That’s one of the fun things when you’re playing someone who actually exists. You’d do it anyway, even if you’re playing someone who doesn’t exist, but when you have actual material to look at—interviews and film archives of Atlanta at that time. This [series] is based on a podcast that Will Packer produced. So there’s a lot of resource material there to dig into and help flesh out this human being for you. But then it’s about that specific story that you’re telling. And this isn’t the truth.

This is based on these true events (laughs). Finding that mix between the things that you want to make sure you’re holding onto that’s grounded in the truth and the reality, and then extending out from there into how to tell this creative, interesting, entertaining story about these few nights in Atlanta which ultimately is what it needs to be. 

How much of Atlanta did you get to see while filming? Did you get to do any exploring? How did the city influence your performance?

More so, the people influenced the performance. And we were lucky that we had people there, at this event. Not only that, Sam [Samuel L. Jackson] was there. Sam lived in Atlanta during this time. He had a pretty famous event that happened for him when he was in college in Atlanta at that time that people should look up. Chicken Man’s family was there. There’s a lot of history, and now, it’s there at the click of a button, right? You can find out anything.

For Detective Hudson, were there any elements of him that you identified with?

The thing about Hudson is that he is both a pariah in the community because he’s the cop; but he’s also a hero to the community because he is one of the first Black cops [in the Atlanta Police Department]. One of the first to really try to change the identity of the police department and the culture of his community. So he was always having to straddle this line between being someone who was revered and someone who was seen as revolting at the same time.

I don’t know how much that relates to me interpersonally, but it was a lot to chew on. It was a lot of great stuff to play. And where it relates to all of us is, I think, you know, everyone’s trying to figure it out all the time, right?

Mm-hmm.

Each of these characters is trying to figure out how to exist. How to make a name for themselves. How to create space for themselves. How to define themselves. And I think we are in some very critically interesting times right now and we don’t know where things are headed. It’s definitely not a one-to-one correlation from then to now but, we are going to have to understand and try to figure out who we are again. As always in this country.

(laughs) It’s like a never-ending like cycle…

Never ending…Two steps forward…. three steps behind. And, that’s what the characters in Fight Night are dealing with, too. 

Everybody, like you said, is playing a different role in creating a new Atlanta, but I don’t think they realized it while they were doing it. It kind of mirrors not just Atlanta but Black culture as a whole—especially entertainment—where social media, etc. have helped people redefine what Black culture and Black entertainment are and aren’t.

What do you think a Black story is?

I don’t know. I think, to your point, we’re in the middle of it, so we don’t know. We’re also in the middle of both a boom in television and a boom in the need for content and a ‘Blacklash.’ Post-George Floyd, it was like, ‘We want Black content.’ And then it was like, ‘Black people need to be in stuff.’ We keep seeing, as you say, this cyclical struggle that we are … I don’t see how it’s going to end. The trend is not our friend. 

We’re going to have to continue to find ways to define who we are and then challenge those definitions. I think that’s important, too. There’s no empirical truth about … there’s no monolithic truth about ‘this is Black.’  We’re many things. We are expansive, and you can’t pigeonhole what it means to be Black.

Exactly.

I hope that there’s an opportunity for it to be redefined over and over and over again, you know? When Atlanta came out, people were like, ‘Is that Black?’ It’s like why isn’t it Black? Everybody in it is Black. The creator is Black, the writers are Black. How it ain’t Black, you know what I mean? We should not be limited in the ways that we can express ourselves. I’m glad that [the number of self-identified] Black nerds are growing. We’re everything. Let’s be everything. Let every voice come out and really express themselves

With Fight Night, I feel like when I look at all of media, not necessarily Black media, but media in Black stories from this period are rarely portrayed as much as other stories. But, like I said, I couldn’t even tell you what a Black story is.

When I go and look for these things or watch these things [that] center around like Black people doing whatever they’re doing, I think it’s very interesting that this kinda takes that route but not in the sense of … You know, this is not a disco movie. 

[It’s] not medicine. I think that’s the hardest target to hit. For everybody. Not just for Black people. For any creative. We want everybody to see it, and hopefully, be entertained by it, you know? You have to find ways to smuggle in stuff. 

You wanna hide the peas in the mashed potatoes, but there needs to be peas. I don’t want to just do puffy stuff that has no bearing on anything because that’s not the world we’re living in. But I also am not necessarily just giving medicine. ‘Cause people reject it. Nobody literally wants proselytization. Nobody really wants to be preached to and told, ‘You have to eat this.’ Like I don’t wanna eat that. Give me some sugar. Just dip the medicine in it. 

A little cupcake (laughs)

Yeah, stick that pill in the cupcake. That’s when I think it works the best. Something that works between those two things— something that’s inspirational but also irreverent and fun. 

The person you’re playing, J.D. Hudson, as you said, broke the race barrier of the Atlanta Police Department. Let’s get into that because, as a community, the relationship between Black people and police has always been, you know—

Tenuous at best.

What do you think this story says about that relationship and any evolution between Black people and police and where we are currently?

I don’t know where we are currently with the police. It’s defining itself as we speak. And we are obviously always going to have an uncomfortable relationship with law enforcement because, traditionally, it does not respect and/or serve us in the ways that keep us safe. That is a part of the narrative writ large of J.D. In this particular story, I think as it was written… that’s a question that’s always put to him and he’s always challenged by it. It’s always thrown in his face and people call him a sell-out and a pig.

It’s all of that all the way to the end, then, some resolution. But does that resolution mean that it’s resolved?  It’s always going to be changing based on whatever event happens and how you respond to it. I mean, we’re two days past a presidential candidate assassination attempt. What’s that … what does that do? What does that mean?

How does that even look in this climate, in this day and age? In the past, in an assassination attempt, you probably, maybe had a couple of photographers there. Now, we’re watching it live on Twitter.

And the video of the video of it. And the video of the video of the video of it. It becomes fodder for whoever wants to use it in whatever way they want to use it. People get in their silos and just turn off anything that gives them cognitive dissonance and run to the thing that makes them feel good. And it’s really, really, really, really, really challenging right now to discern what’s truth and what’s not, and I think that’s not by accident. 

I saw these Facebook creators talking about, like, we let the genie out of the bottle, and we kinda knew when we did it that it wasn’t really responsible and that we were dealing with a part of human psychology that was not ready for this. And I think it’s born out that way. And, you know, now you have media following social media. You have news stories following TikTok stories. Ain’t it supposed to go the other way around (laughs)? 

As somebody who sometimes has to write those, I’ve always wondered the same thing. This is very weird how things are kind of, I can’t even say evolving. It’s more like shifting.

Or devolving…or both. I think that’s really what it is, as things push forward and progress, things are going to regress. It’s just the sort of yin-yang of this. People are getting more and more enlightened and smarter and more curious and introspective and people are getting more calcified and angry and mad and closing the circle at the same time. Most of us don’t want to be on either of those extremes.

You’re usually vocal about stuff and use your platform and your voice to speak on issues that matter. But do you ever feel the need or do you ever just log off and silence everything?

Yes, you have to, I think. So that you have energy to come back and start doing it again. ‘Cause shut up at your own peril. It’s not going to save you. It’s not like being loud is necessarily going to get you killed. It could, but it’s not going to necessarily protect you. Pick your poison. You’re going to go out at some point. Go out while you’re trying to do the best thing you can do.

Speaking more so to your overall career, what do you think Fight Night adds to your full body of work? 

I think that’s more of a question for you than it is for me. I try not to think of it in terms of that. It’s like I try to prepare, show up, and do the best work I can. Be a really good partner, bring everything that I have and all of my experience to bear, help create the best thing possible, and then walk away. I don’t control the edit. I don’t control marketing. I don’t control the release date.

Now you really sound like me.

Well, I’m saying, that’s what it is. All I can do is my work, and then people will accept it or like it or not. And that’s not my look-out; that’s not on me. And I’m not even trying to absolve myself of any responsibility for what I’ve done. You can do a bad performance and people are like, ‘That sucks.’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, that wasn’t that good.’  Or you can do a great performance, and people think that’s great or you can do a great performance, [and] people think that [it] sucks. You know what I mean?

You could do a bad movie, and people will love it.

It’s all just very relative, and I think everybody’s right ’cause this is an opinion. We’re not talking about empirical truths. I just hope that people appreciate and enjoy it. I think the best compliment of the work is if people finish something and then they want to talk about it at the coffee shop or they want to Google stuff. I don’t even mind when people are like, ‘That ain’t how that went down,’ and they want to go do their own research. 

Something I found interesting in this story is that while I knew a lot of non-Black people were against Ali for his decision not to enter the draft, I didn’t know that other Black people also didn’t feel his decision. 

Yeah, I mean especially, it’s kind of like this college debt thing. People are like, ‘Why should they forgive that debt? I had to pay my debt. Why should he not have to go fight? Other brothers are over there. The other brothers went and did it. How does he just get to not go ’cause he’s a celebrity?’ And that was a lot of it, too, like, ‘Oh, he’s a star, and he’s a celebrity.’ He lost his world title for it. It wasn’t like there was no penalty. If you want to suffer the consequences of saying no, you can do it too. He decided to do it, and he suffered the consequences.

I never looked at it that way. 

Especially if you’re built… If you come from a certain tradition or come from a certain generation like J.D. did, where it’s like you show up for service because you’re telling white people, ‘I am not what you want to paint me as. I’m not a shirker; I’m not a quitter. I’m not a coward.’ There’s different ways they’re trying to prove that. And Ali stood up and said, ‘I’m none of those things just ’cause I’m not going to fight. I’m actually the opposite of those things ’cause I’m not going to fight.’

But you can see how those perspectives… How they freight on that moment based on what angle you’re coming in at it. I also think a good thing in this story, without specifically giving anything away, is how people’s perspectives shift and change over the course of the show.

Are there any types of stories or kinds of roles you haven’t done that you would like to explore?

I know them when I see them. 

***

Photographer: Sage East

Photo Assistant: Wacunza Clark

Wardrobe Stylist: Mark Holmes

Wardrobe Assistant: Raymond Avalos

Groomer: Linda Whang

Barber: Quan Pearce

Art Designer: R. Scott Wells

Videographer: Jason Chandler

Video Assistant: Laetitia Rumford