During conversation, Williams outlines his path from Everybody Hates Chris, where he played the 13-year-old title character, to starring as first-grade teacher Gregory Eddie on ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary.
In exchange, Mackie explains how he played the amnesiac John Doe in Peacock’s video game adaptation Twisted Metal, and taking his Marvel character Falcon from film to TV and back.
ANTHONY MACKIE: Since the last time I saw you, you’ve been nominated for an Emmy 35 times and won, like, 20.
MACKIE: I didn’t even get nominated for BET Award. I ain’t got nothing.
WILLIAMS: We’ve come a long way. Last time I saw you, we were doing Detroit with Kathryn Bigelow.
MACKIE: You were in your mid-20s, a kid. You asked for cup of milk, eating peanut butter cookies.
MACKIE: You’ve been doing this for a long time, and in a way that lot of actors have not been able to. Looking at your career, there’s certain dignity that came with it. You’ve been in it since before “Everybody Hates Chris.” How did that work, blowing up at young age and transitioning to a professional adult actor?
WILLIAMS: I had to fight for my career to survive, and I feel like if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have gone as hard as I did. I was fighting for staying power — fighting to say that I wasn’t just a cute kid who could land a joke every now and then. I didn’t really start to feel stable in it until we did “Detroit.” Everyone has that period when you have a role here and there to “No, I’m going to consistently work with great people.” You made that transition really well. I remember Spike Lee’s “She Hate Me.”
MACKIE: A lot of people hated that movie. My first movie with Spike, nobody saw it: Sucker Free City. One day on set, Volkswagen dealer came and goes, “Yo, you’re the lead of the Spike Lee movie? Here, take this.” The whole time I’m in San Francisco, I have this Volkswagen that ain’t even out yet. I’m living. Then the movie came out, and it was just silence. While we were shooting that, Jeffrey Wright was supposed to do “She Hate Me.” One day Spike goes, “Man, Jeffrey’s not doing my movie. What you doing after this?”
MACKIE: Twice–Hurt Locker. When I met with Kathryn, they wanted me to play one of the other soldiers, and I explained to her how war wasn’t about race; they’ll kill you whatever you look like. She saw what I was implying. And I was doing this movie that never came out with this awful director — his name was Dan, I won’t say his last name — and we go over by six months. I was supposed to leave to do “Hurt Locker.” Kathryn was like, “I’m sorry. Maybe the next one.” So they go and offer it to another actor, and he said no. So they came back to me like, “Look, we’ll wait, if you leave the day you wrap.” That movie literally started my career, because one dude said it wasn’t enough money.
WILLIAMS: I tell people all the time, if whether or not you do a movie is because of the money, you’re handicapping yourself.
