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• Time magazine, "10 Questions for Don Cheadle"
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Tavis: I'm pleased to have Don Cheadle back on this program. The Oscar-nominated actor is once again receiving rave reviews for his latest project, "Talk To Me." In the film he portrays talk radio pioneer Ralph Waldo Petey Greene, who ruled the D.C. airways back in the late 1960s. Don Cheadle also serves as executive producer of the film. It hits theaters on July 13th. Here now a scene from "Talk To Me."

[Clip]

Tavis: I love it. You got the class, with the little pinky thing out there.

Don Cheadle: That's right. Well, you gotta be classy when you've boosted something. (Laughter.)

Tavis: How you doing, man?

Cheadle: Good.

Tavis: You been all right?

Cheadle: Yeah, I've been real good.

Tavis: I don't know, I'm going to ramble in trying to express this.

Cheadle: Come on.

Tavis: But the studio was very nice, as they so often do, sent me a copy of the movie to watch in advance of our conversation with Don Cheadle. I was on the road in Atlanta last weekend and I popped in the movie to watch it. And what did I do that for, because I'm up at midnight, popping the thing in. It goes off at 1:30. So I couldn't sleep.

I could not sleep. So I pick up my phone, I call Don Cheadle on his cell phone, and I just had to talk to somebody. I couldn't find Don, I called anybody and everybody till I got my friend Ren on the phone - our friend Ren.

Cheadle: Right, that's right.

Tavis: So Ren Brown and I are up talking about this. But this movie impacted me in such a powerful, powerful way. You were, like, the baddest thing out there now, Don.

Cheadle: Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Tavis: Your acting is absolutely supreme.

Cheadle: Thank you very much.

Tavis: What did you make of the chance to play this character, who I, quite frankly, as well as I know Cathy Hughes, I've been on Radio One stations all across the country for years now, I did not know the Petey Greene story.

Cheadle: I think very few people outside of D.C. really had heard of Petey Greene and really, unless you're of a certain age, you still haven't heard of Petey Greene. But he really was this iconographic figure that put that station on the map, and with his partner Dewey Hughes, they really kind of turned that station and they just revolutionized the talk radio and created this platform for people to air their voices and air their opinions. They're really kind of the first shock jock out there.

Tavis: The way that people describe the film or describe him, at least in short, is he was really the first shock jock. And he was Black, of course, as we jus saw in the picture. I think the problem with that is it almost does a disservice to Petey when you get to see the movie and know the story. Because when you think shock jock nowadays, you think Don Imus, you think Howard Stern.

And with all due respect to those brothers, that's not what - Petey was saying something. Am I on?

Cheadle: I do think - obviously, we always try to find a short -

Tavis: A simple way to - exactly. A shorthand.

Cheadle: - compartmentalize people. But he really was unique, and I think that's why he had attained the position that he had in that community, is because he came from a place of - a hardscrabble life, knew the people, spent a great deal of his time in jail. So he came out with this perspective that nobody on the radio had had before, another Sunny Jim there, playing the sweet, sugary Supremes songs, and the nighthawk playing these R&B cuts.

And then here comes this brother on the mic who would say anything that popped into his head at any time, but had such a unique perspective, given where he had come from, that I think he just took the whole city on his back. And everyone was, like, that's our man.

Tavis: I'm going to fast-forward this conversation and then come back in a moment. You can see I was just fascinated, just blown away by this. So you fast-forward to the end of his life; he dies way too soon. So many years of hard living, he's dead at 53, as I recall. So Petey is dead at 53, and outside of a state funeral, outside of a president, they have never, even to this day in D.C., had as many people turn up for any funeral as for Petey. Over 10,000 -

Cheadle: Over 10,000 mourners.

Tavis: - people at an outside service for Petey Greene. So the impact that he had with the people in D.C. was almost indescribable. What was it about him that allowed him, you think, to connect with people in that way? He's a radio personality who people are just blown away by.

Cheadle: Well, I think his connection was due to the fact that he wasn't speaking over anybody's head. He wasn't trying to pontificate, he wasn't trying to talk down to anybody. He was just saying this is how it is, this is how I see it. You go on YouTube and check out this clip of Petey Greene shows how to eat a watermelon, which is just - it's sick and it's brilliant and it's high art and it's social commentary, and it's all of these things condensed in just this person's perspective on things. That's just so unique and amazing.

Tavis: When I think of this connection to people, I go back to the scene in the movie where he is on the air the day, the night that Dr. King is assassinated. It is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, because for those of us who were too young or not even around when King was assassinated in '68, you get a chance - (unintelligible) does a wonderful job of letting you feel Black America's pain when King is assassinated.

He's the only thing they have. Even for you, playing the character of Petey, this loss of King is just almost indescribable. And yet they put you on the air, they put Petey on. Petey was on the air that night. Cities are on fire as a result of this assassination of Dr. King - they have killed our King, and you're on the air. Take me back to filming - I've been dying to ask you. What was it like filming those scenes, because the emotion comes through as if you weren't even acting at that point. You were, like, channeling this guy, Petey Greene.

Cheadle: Well the best thing often about getting to do movies is that you get to have the best toys. And we recreate these riots, and we're really burning things, and people are really running around with Molotov cocktails. So you felt like kind of like it felt here in '92. There's a little bit of that feeling, and the same kind of events that went into it, as where are we as a people now?

Do we have any voice? Do we have any say? Are we safe anywhere? Can they just do anything to us? And it's just when you let those feelings sort of resurge, obviously, yeah, I was too young; I was four years old at the time. But I was here in '92, and I remember the day that that verdict happened, before the riots even jumped off, that I felt that same sort of anything can happen to us.

We have no rights, we have no ability to protect ourselves inside this system that we live in, so what's the point? And I think that's kind of what was happening all over the place, but I think what was amazing was Petey's ability to understand the ideas behind what Martin Luther King was saying. And he goes, this is not what - this isn't the reaction that he would have wanted.

If you really want to respect and honor this man's legacy and this man's memory, you won't do this to yourselves. You won't do this to each other. And again, that connected in a way, because it wasn't coming from somebody on high. It wasn't coming from some politician. It was coming from somebody who was, like, I came from the same thing ya'll came from, and this is not the way we need to deal with this.

Tavis: The last scene I want to get to for our conversation today is the scene where he does "The Tonight Show." Now you can imagine how surreal this was for me watching this, because I had just been on "The Tonight Show" the night before. So last Thursday, I'm on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, and 24 hours later I'm watching this clip in the movie of Petey making his first appearance on "The Tonight Show."

He walks out on stage and I'll let you take it from there. I don't want to give too much of it away, but I was just moved by how he went out and although it didn't hit - he was not a success on "The Tonight Show;" he ends up walking off, eventually - but he stood by what he believed and - I'll let you take it. I'm rambling.

Cheadle: Well, no, no, no, but you're hitting it right on the head. And I think a lot of times, people, when we've talked about this film, we've had these discussions afterwards, and a lot of people say, “Well, do you think he failed, and do you think that ultimately, he didn't realize his full potential?” And I think not to Petey, and even not to Dewey Hughes, who's still alive today - you know he lives out here; he lives in California.

And to let Dewey tell it, he said he knew that Petey didn't want the same things that he wanted, and he knew that Petey felt like he was being pushed into something bigger that was really Dewey's dream; it wasn't really his dream. And when the bubble finally burst, it did injure their friendship greatly. They were separated for a long time; they were estranged.

But he came to really understand that that's not what Petey wanted. They did an album, they did a comedy album, and again trying to follow the footsteps of Redd Foxx or Flip Wilson or Richard Pryor or any of those cats. And these were jokes that Petey had done for years and years, and he said during the recording of it, Petey was tanking the jokes.

He was purposefully - the timing was off and it didn't work out. And Dewey is convinced that he was doing it purposefully. That he was trying to tell him in so many words look, man.

Tavis: That's not what I want to do.

Cheadle: That's not what I want to do.

Tavis: I'm a Negro from the streets of D.C., I've been to jail, I'm on the radio, I'm talking to these Black folk every day who I love, and this is what I love doing. I don't care if I get on "The Tonight Show" or sell comedy records. I just want to do what I do every day, and he was -

Cheadle: I want to do my thing. That's your thing. I'm happy with my thing, and it's okay for me to be this big fish in this little pond. And guess what? The people dig it, you know what I mean? I understand that everybody's supposed to want more and more and more and more, but is it okay if I don't?

Tavis: Let me just say right quick to African Americans around the country primarily who listen to Radio One stations. You all know the story of Cathy Hughes, one of the wealthiest sisters in America who owns hundreds of radio stations all across America. Petey Greene was the person that really made Radio One what it is.

He started, he helped make WOL, their flagship station in D.C., the success that it was. And it was because Cathy Hughes, first on WOL, that she was able to go on to buy hundreds of stations all across this country. Now, again, she's one of the wealthiest Black women in America. She and her son Alfred Liggums, (sp) who actually run Radio One.

So if you're a Radio One listener, you have to see this movie. And if you are not - I've never done this is four or five years hosting the show on PBS - if you don't see but one movie this year, please go see "Talk To Me." It is a powerful story, starring one of the greatest actors of his generation, Don Cheadle. Don, I'm glad to have you here.

Cheadle: Thank you so much, Tavis.

Tavis: Good to see you, man.

Cheadle: Yeah.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight.