What I learned from my recent time spent with singer/actor/producer/model Tyrese Gibson is to expect the unexpected. Also, he’s a great talker when inspired to be one.
Gibson was born (and raised) in Watts, Los Angeles in 1978. His new film, 1992, centers on a fictional heist that takes place during the very real riots that destroyed parts of Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict. Given his upbringing, it’s clear that this story was very personal to him as a reminder of his childhood and of the current state of race relations in the United States.
In the film, Gibson plays Mercer Bey, a recently incarcerated man now working in a factory in Los Angeles. Mercer is attempting to raise his teen son Antoine (Christopher Ammanuel), but the two butt heads at every turn in their small South Central home. But they must put aside their differences when the riots break out after a not-guilty verdict comes down against multiple LAPD officers who were recorded repeatedly beating a suspect. Mercer wants to bring Antoine to his workplace for safety, even though the plant has closed to let employees go home to their families. While this is happening, a group of thieves decide to rob the plant where a precious metal is used as part of the manufacturing process, and Mercer has to stop the criminals in order to save his son. The film features the final on-screen appearance of Ray Liotta, as the head of the group of thieves. Director Ariel Vromen finds a way to blend this very personal story about a father and son with a heist movie, and the results give Gibson one of his strongest dramatic roles since his film debut in John Singleton’s 2001 feature Baby Boy.
Gibson began his career as a model and celebrated R&B singer, but once he displayed acting chops, he began showing up in such films as the first few Transformers films, Four Brothers, Death Race, and, most notably, all but the first Fast & Furious movies, in which he plays Roman Pearce. On the same day that 1992 is released (this Friday), Gibson’s double-album, Beautiful Pain, drops, marking his return to recording after many years of concentrating on acting. The work is said to be a response to many recent traumatic events in his life, including the loss of his mother to COVID-19 and his contentious divorce. After our interview, he played me tracks from the new album, and they are positively dripping with raw emotion.
Walking into what I thought was going to be a 10- to 15-minute interview about 1992, I thought the film would be the primary focus of our talk. But Gibson let his emotions out about both the film and the album, and we spoke for more than 30 minutes, following by the listening session. We hit every corner of this film’s deeper implications, which pivoted into a discussion of Gibson’s personal life, so brace yourself for something of a journey and keep an eye out for his various projects this week.
I didn’t know much about this film when I sat down to watch it, and my first thought after I did was “If John Singleton were still alive, he absolutely would have directed this movie.” Especially with you in it. No offense to Ariel at all—he does a hell of a job—but did that ever cross your mind at any point?
Yeah. You’re absolutely right. And as far as Ariel is concerned, that has been the running joke from the beginning: “Where did you come from?” He did The Iceman; he’s a real filmmaker, who really knows how to pull performances out of folks. I knew coming into it that there was a pre-existing relationship with him and Ray—rest in peace to him—and that was something I wish I didn’t know, because there’s nothing more uncomfortable for me as an actor than coming to class in the second semester. I was the new guy in the front of the room. It’s the way most people feel coming into the Fast & Furious movies—“You all have been doing this for 20 years.” Even if you have the most confidence in the world, it’s still the most uncomfortable thing to be a brand-new person jumping into the world that’s been around for so many years.
Ariel is Israeli from Israel. He is the furthest thing from South Central L.A., and yet it’s a confirmation that when you’re a filmmaker and do your research and understand people, even if you’re not from or of that culture, there is a way to tell that story. You may never have been married in your life, but it doesn’t mean you can’t direct The Notebook. It doesn’t mean you can’t capture love in its purest form just because you haven’t experienced it yourself. I feel like 1992 is the Fast & Furious of South Central films, because you have never seen, in the history of South Central L.A. films, this much diversity. Ray Liotta, Scott Eastwood, the actor who plays my son, all of his goons—they had one Black dude in their crew, and I don’t want to give anything away, but good luck to him .
It was a part of why I said yes to it, because I love being in a cast that's predominantly Black or only Black, because it’s my culture and my people, but I’ve gotten into this headspace that I don’t sing for Black people; I sing for everybody. I don’t do movies for just my culture; I do movies for everybody. I’ve never considered myself pop or mainstream or crossover; I’ve been in films that did bonkers at the box office, and you know it wasn’t just Black and brown people supporting it. Even Vin Diesel, who is multi-ethnic himself, has a production company called “One Race.” When you go into it with that mentality, why wouldn’t I want to do a film that would have everybody in the theater go “Oh my god, there’s somebody in this movie that looks like me.”
When you go down your list, Colors has Sean Penn in it, but he was a police officer with Don Cheadle. Second movie was Menace II Society, then Boyz n the Hood, then Poetic Justice, Set It Off, Training Day, Straight Outta Compton, Baby Boy—no white directors and predominantly Black casts. But there has not been more diversity on this level , and I could not be more proud. For the people that think that this movie is about looting and rioting and specifically about Rodney King—when people say it’s the backdrop, some might not know what that means—it means that while all of the rioting and disfunction was going down, and I was a part of it—I was looting, boycotting, protesting in Watts, which was scary in 1992. It’s really interesting to come up with a storyline that said while you guys were focusing on burning, stealing, looting, rioting, we’re about to go do a heist and break into a warehouse that has $50 million in platinum bars. That’s what the entire movie is about. It’s also about father-son relationships between me and my son and Ray Liotta and his son. Like I said, I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it.
The real events that serve as the backdrop happened more than 30 years ago, so for some people watching this movie, they might not even know about the Rodney King verdict or the what happened in the aftermath. What do you want those younger people thinking about when they come out of this movie?
Do you want me to give you a politically correct answer or a true answer?
I want the truth.
Steve, what is your ethnicity and background?
Half Irish, half Czech, everybody moved to this country around the turn of the last century.
So you have probably three different ethnicities that you’re mixed with. The reason I asked you that question was because my biggest concern with the world that we live in right now is that because I’m not from where you’re from, that I’ve decided to not care about your politics, your race, your culture, the things that you and your family survived and dealt with, and that’s fucked up. If I could go and do a film and get someone who doesn’t live in this Black skin everyday, who is not from where I’m from, and they can look at this movie and decide that something inside of me has some sensitivities that are being activated that were never there before I watched this movie, I’ve done my job.
Are you not losing sleep over the fact that a synagogue was just shot up or a mosque was just shot up? Why not, because those aren’t your people? Are you not concerned about what happened with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Treyvon Martin, or do you just not care just because you aren’t Black? Why do you have to be Black to care about the things that Black people are dealing with? Why do you have be gay or transgender to care about someone who decides to go hang out and get shot and killed in parking lot because of their lifestyle? I don’t have to be something I’m not to have empathy toward something they’ve experienced. I’m not a part of that world or community, but I can pray for them; they should pray for me, I can pray for me. You could be someone who changed my life in the most unexpected way. Should I just completely block you out because your background has nothing to do with mine? So yes, when I speak to the diversity of this film, I want this movie to do as well as it’s going to do, and I do know that these days, people would love to look at films and see people who look like them; that’s the world we live in.
The relationship that you and Christopher have is the beating heart of this movie. Did you two think it was better to bond a little bit before shooting started, or did you want to have a relationship off-camera that was more reflective of they abrasive one you have on-camera?
That’s a great question. My relationship with Chris, the whole opening scene at breakfast, I wrote it, and we did it from improv-ing. There were a bunch of scenes that our director was shooting while we had two weeks off in Bulgaria—we shot the majority of the movie in Bulgaria and then about seven days in South Central. So that random warehouse, that’s Bulgaria. We had two weeks off, and I had just met Chris—I picked him from the casting standpoint. There were some guys from the TV show Power that they showed me, others who were household names, and Chris’s audition tape was so on fire, that I looked past the wikipedia page, I didn’t think about box office; I wanted to cast the best person for the job, so when they sent over the 10 options for the job, it was undeniable.
So when I met him for the first time in Bulgaria, I knew that the clock has started, and we had to talk, unpack, spend real time together, because if we don’t spend this time together off-camera, it’s going to reveal itself on-camera. We had that time off, and we did a five-hour roadtrip to a hotel; he had his girl with him, I had my girl with me, and we’re all still the best of friends today. I don’t have a son, but I consider him my son. His girl and my girl are the best of friends, talk everyday, helping each other. The dynamic that showed up in the movie was one that we were very intentional about developing, and we’re very happy it showed up in the movie and people believe it.
We worked really hard working on the dialogue and drawing that line in the sand, where he gets fired up about something and I get irritated about it, but I let my son speak and get it all out, because I won’t be able to correct something I don’t understand. I’ve got two daughters, and sometimes they say some dumb shit. They feel something, and you have to be there as as parent and listen and course correct. And then I say “Would you consider this?” And when you say it that way, you’re giving them the option to think that they are making the choice between their original way of thinking or the way daddy looks at it, because he’s older and has more experience. At some point, they get away from their worldview and fall in. It’s all about the approach.
So there were some scenes in the movie that were clearly written like they were a white father and son, but I said, “If my son ever said some shit like that to me or slap me, hit me like that, then the movie would end because we’d be at his funeral.” I guess the credits need to start rolling on this movie because there’s no way in hell that my son is going to get into an argument where he’s going to sock me in my face. So we had to clean that up in the script because that wasn’t reality.
Between this movie and your new album, you are dealing with a lot of different pain in your life.
Oh yeah.
To address them, do you use different creative muscles to write and sing a song about that, compared to acting it?
Let’s go down the list. It doesn’t matter how long ago some of these traumas happen or how they were inflicted, they’re still very fresh, especially when you loved someone. I lost Paul Walker, John Singleton, my mom, both of the my older sisters, my nephew. I recently lost the son of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., named Dexter King. My marriage went up in smoke, I’ve always been at war with the mother of my first child, that’s nothing new. But there’s been a lot of trauma, lot of pain, lot of confusion.
So what happens is, you have more than two choices, but one of the choices is suicide, which has never been a choice of mine, never had the thought, but I do know that a lot of people who have been through things get pushed to that point. We see suicide play out everyday, whether the people are famous or not, and I thank the lord that there’s something inside of me that even when I get to these dark places, my belief in my faith and my will power and determination to live helped me push through this stuff.
The other thing I’ve learned in therapy, unfortunately, is that God the all-knowing God, and that’s a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is he knew what was going to happen before it happened; the bad thing is that we’re all human beings here to experience it in real time. I didn’t know I was going to lose my mother, but from the moment she was conceived to the moment she took her last breath, the all-knowing God knew. I’m just here on earth to experience everything that’s happening in real time. You can find yourself getting mad at God about the things he knew the whole time.
I wake up to a divorce, but I got married to do it for the rest of my life. I’ll never forget the moment my new girlfriend stepped out of my shower in the master bedroom, and I was leaning against the wall—I’ve never told this story publicly and I hope you keep it because I want people to understand. The moment I realized it was really over was not only because she packed up 50 boxes and left with an eight-month old, who couldn’t stand on his own, which wasn’t fair; the baby never asked to be here and definitely didn’t ask for us to break up; she just wanted to be born into a married family, with a great mommy and daddy. But the moment it became real was when I got into this new relationship, six months later, pretty fast but not everyone should be alone when they’re going through a breakup.
But when she stepped out of the shower, and she’s everything, and I’m like “God damn.” And she’s like “What are you doing just standing there?” Nothing uncomfortable, she just thought I was leaning against the wall flirting. And I looked at her and said, “I never thought in my life I would see another woman step out of this shower.” .
And she said, “Sorry.” And I’m like, “No, no, I’m just being real with you and telling you that you’re the best thing that’s ever stepped out of this shower.” I’m almost mad I’m the only one seeing this , if we’re going to be honest. I got married in this house, everything that has been about this house is with this one woman and this experience. I never cheated, no side chick, no baby on the way, she never went in my phone and found out I touched a woman inappropriately.
I thought I was going to cheat, I thought I was going to do all sorts of dumb shit to end my own marriage, but going back to God, Beautiful Pain would never have been produced. If you think of a painter, some of your best paintings come from somebody going through some real shit. If you wait five months on the other side of healing and then pull out the canvas, it’s going to be a very different painting. I could not going to the studio right now and write, produce, create anything to do with Beautiful Pain because those feelings and thoughts and vulnerabilities are not longer as fresh as they used to be.
When you look at 1992, you’re looking at the death of my mother, which was still heavy on my mind. I’ve done dramatic films, action films, where I’ve made way more money than I did making this, but I came to this set on fire—divorced, buried my mom, and you’re seeing all of that in my performance, raw, just completely raw. Fast forward, I have 20 songs. David Foster is the executive producer, Lenny Kravitz is on this, Kenny G, El Debarge. I listen to this album and can’t believe it’s mine, can’t believe those are my feelings and experiences. It might be the worst shit you ever heard in your life, or it might be an album you put in the top 50.
It’s very easy for us to go back to Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, Donny Hathaway, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, we won’t even allow ourselves to believe we can create something that can measure up, but I think I have. I think I’ve got something very special. I don’t even know how to sell an album these days, but I can tell you, this ain’t for your kids. This album is going to help you make a brother and sister for them. You thought you were the last child and your momma might be 40 years old, but she’ll be like, “I’m pregnant.”
Beautiful Pain has helped me discover the beauty in my pain. The other thing I want to go on record to say to all of your readers is thank you all for being interested in all in my career, my story, my stuff. My love for the Lord Jesus Christ would not allow me to release an album to try and contribute to the divorce rate. You will be slow dancing in the living room with your wife, you will be apologizing to your wife about some shit you did 10 years ago that’s a reoccurring argument, you’re going to look at your wife and go “What the fuck are we arguing about? Let’s pull it together or we’re going to be able to dedicate one of these songs to each other and not in a good way.” So you have the beauty and the pain, and while everyone is trying to normalize the dialogue around mental health, if mental health was an album, it’s right there—all of my vulnerabilities.
I have a song on my album called “Wildflower,” dedicated to my mother, produced by David Foster, he released the original song from his group Skylark. He has never produced or co-produced any other version of “Wildflower.” There have been a bunch of remakes, but he came back and did mine, for my mother. It’s on the radio right now and all streaming platforms. This album has created a place and space that we didn’t even realize we’d been robbed of. One things is for sure, with all of these rappers out there, you’ll never see any of them produced by David Foster. He has not been in the studio in 8-10 years to produce a whole album until now. It’s coming out the same day as 1992.
Thank you for sharing all of those stories, man. It’s been great meeting you.
Thank you, Steve.
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