By The opening of One Night in Miami tells viewers the story is ‘inspired by true events’, but the relationship between truth and fiction in the drama is more complicated. Kemp Powers, who recently co-directed Pixar’s Soul, originally wrote the play in order to fill in the gaps about what happened behind closed doors when Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown met in a hotel room in Miami in 1964.
The new film adaptation of the story, directed by Regina King and written by Powers, similarly probes the imagined private conversation of four men whose public demeanours have been mythologised. In Malcolm X we see quiet moments of doubt and fear creep in, while in Muhammad Ali there are scenes of contemplation and questioning faith. Largely confined to a hotel room we watch these four men wrestling, both with their own demons and verbally with one another.
Earlier this week, Esquire spoke to Powers over Zoom to discuss weaving fiction from history, the need to write a “love letter to Black men” in popular culture, and the unfortunate, endless relevance of the story.
Esquire: The story is a fictional account of a real evening, what was the spark which inspired the original play you wrote?
Kemp Powers: It was the fact that evening did happen. About 15 years ago I was reading a book on the intersection between professional sports and the civil rights movement. The focus was Muhammad Ali and it mentioned that specific night and the fact that when Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston, he went back to Malcolm X’s hotel room with Sam Cooke and Jim Brown. The next morning he announced that he was a member of The Nation of Islam to the press. I already knew about the relationship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, but for some reason the idea of the four of them together in a room really sparked my imagination. My initial intention was to write a book about their friendship but the thing that stumped me was that I couldn’t get a lot of details about what they discussed in the room. It seems to me like perfect grist for the mill for a dramatic piece where these four titans are trapped in a room together, the idea being that the room becomes a ring with this four-way match.
Is there anything known about what they did speak about?
Little details of the night show up in various biographies, one little fact that’s true is that all they had was vanilla ice cream. Sometimes you read something about what was discussed on the night and it contradicts something else that was written. When you read a biography on Muhammad Ali everything is from his perspective and how it affects him, whereas when you read a biography on Sam Cooke, everything is from his perspective. Often you get details on the night that don’t align with one another which makes me feel even better about this fictionalised conversation that takes place.
When reports contradict each other, how do you find a path forward?
90 per cent of what is said is stuff that is my creation, but it’s based on what they believed and who they really were. If you do a cursory bit of research into Sam Cooke you’ll know he was inspired to write “A Change Is Gonna Come” after hearing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”, and he literally said, ‘A Black man should have written that song’. Generally speaking when things contradict each other I try to do a little bit more reporting and research to understand what the truth was, but it’s always going to be like [the] Rashomon [effect], where, depending on who you ask about any given moment you’re going to get ten different stories, so whatever serves the story I’m trying to tell the best.
You mentioned about it being like a boxing match in the room, and there is a sense of them sparring with their words. How did you inhabit each of their voices, did you read their speeches and listen to their music?
All of the above, but listening to them in public is just a small part of it because so much of what I was trying to do was show the private, unseen version of each of these men. So many of the videos you see of Malcolm X are him on a podium being fiery, or him involved in a debate with someone who hates his guts, so much of Ali is him being performative. What I wanted to show was the version of each man that manifested itself when you did a holistic view. When you hear about how Malcolm loved taking photos or how shy he was, the fact he would leave his daughters little hidden notes when he left town and then call them and send them on scavenger hunts. I wanted to focus on those human things which in many ways allow me to connect more to them than the many great things they did.
On this night, at least, Cassius Clay was still a 22-year-old man who was growing up and just coming into adulthood. He was on the precipice of so many great things, but he didn’t know what he was going to do yet. Jim was only 28-years-old on this night and unsure if he wanted to stay in the NFL, Sam was in his early thirties and unsure what to do with his career. Malcolm was in his late thirties and felt like he was going to die any day now.
Is it hard to contend with the mythic status that these people have?
The very first draft of the stage play that I wrote was terrible because it was just a book report. I was so excited that I’d discovered all these things about these men that people didn’t know that I felt I had to make sure I got all of them in there. But then I went back to the drawing board and realised that my job is to take all this information and use it as fuel to feed the characterisation. It’s not about the characters regurgitating all these interesting things, it’s about using them to inform their behaviour, and that’s the job with any biopic.
There’s a certain amount of fictionalisation in all of it, if you see something that says ‘Based on a true story’ you could easily start poking holes in the truth behind it, because it’s never 100 per cent true. In fact if it’s Hollywood and it says ‘Based on a true story’, half the time it’s more fiction than things that say their fiction. If anything, I used a lot more reality and fact in this story but I didn’t want it to be burdened by that. I want the debate to wash over you, I don’t want someone to be focused on whether something really happened.
Regina King has described the story as a “love letter to Black men”, is that what you intended in writing it?
It’s a complex issue to me because I feel that regular Black men showing their friendship is something you don’t see very often. Our innate humanity and vulnerability is so rarely on display, but it’s a part of who we are. On the Pixar film Soul I got to tell this universal story through the prism of a Black man and usually we don’t get to do that. People wrongly often assume we don’t have feelings or are superhuman because they don’t get to see it very often, so it was absolutely a goal to put Black men’s humanity on display.
There’s a moment where Malcolm X challenges Sam Cooke about what he is doing to help the movement, do you think there is still that pressure on Black people to be a spokesperson on racial justice?
Absolutely, the central debate is what, if any, social responsibility do we have as a Black artist, athlete, singer… because it’s always going to come up. It’s something I believe that any famous Black person at some point is going to have on their mind, that’s kind of the crux of the debate in the film. I think the conflict between Sam and Malcolm was the first bit that I wrote and was the foundational part of the argument.
There’s also a discussion about the tension between men with different shades of Black skin, is that something that was hard to voice?
It was a very important part of the play as a reference to colourism and it landed so well with Regina. Casting the film was challenging and there was a certain point where the casting directors asked, ‘Is it absolutely necessary for the actor to be light-skinned?’ and even I was like, ‘Do you know what it doesn’t matter, I can rewrite the line', but Regina said, ‘No, it has to be a light-skinned actor, because there’s no way we’re losing that line, it’s too important’. It’s been a nice surprise to see how much that line has resonated, particularly amongst Black people, because colourism is an issue that has always gone on. The word might perceive us all as quote-unquote Black, but within that there is a subset based on complexion.
The final shot of Malcolm’s house burning and the knowledge he is assassinated is such a powerful ending, were you always writing toward that sad eventuality?
I’ve always viewed this story as a tragedy, because as great as these men were I couldn’t help but think of how much further they could have gone together if things had gone differently. Malcolm and Sam were both dead less than a year from this night, Sam within a matter of months. Malcolm didn’t live to see the publication of his autobiography which is what opened him up to a lot of people. Sam didn’t live to see the impact of “A Change Is Gonna Come”. Weeks after this night Malcolm and Ali split and they never spoke to each other again. The tragedy of all that always hung over me.
The play ends on a very sad note, and what I like about the film is that we ended on much more of a note of hope, because even knowing Malcolm and Sam are going to die, you know they have had a positive effect on generations that have come after.
Are you still surprised by how many themes in the film remain part of our present day?
Not anymore, because every production of the play we had over the years was always seen as representative of what was going on. In 2013 Trayvon Martin got killed and George Zimmerman got off, in 2015 there was Freddie Gray. It’s been ever-present. So I’m no longer surprised at all to be honest, and that’s unfortunate.
'One Night in Miami' is on Amazon Prime Video now
Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more delivered straight to your inbox
