When Spike Lee humiliated his brother for being a bad actor: “My first brutal experience”
Spike Lee is all about style. Not only is he one of the best-dressed directors in Hollywood – a title akin to being the most sexually active stamp collector – but his films are also dripping in swag. Do the Right Thing, Da 5 Bloods, and BlacKkKlansman are stunningly slick, zipping along at a rapid, enjoyable pace whilst never distracting from the major issues at hand.
This is probably why Lee has attracted some of the best actors around to front his projects. His collaborations with Denzel Washington are the stuff of legend, from the epic Malcolm X to the upcoming Akira Kurosawa adaptation, Highest 2 Lowest. He’s directed legends of the screen such as Edward Norton and Samuel L. Jackson, as well as rising stars in the vein of Paul Walter Hauser and Denzel’s son, John David. However, not every actor Lee works with is held in the same regard, even if they just so happen to be related to him.
Cinqué Lee is one of Spike’s five siblings and an actor and filmmaker in his own right. He had a minor role in Jim Jarmusch’s film Mystery Train, but your best chance of spotting him is in one of his brother’s works. To date, Cinqué has appeared in three of Spike’s movies; School Daze; Oldboy; and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. You’d think that working for your big brother would be a dream come true, but alas, the Lees didn’t always see eye-to-eye.
As per That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It, the authorised biography of Spike Lee by Kaleem Aftab, the director didn’t hold back when criticising Cinqué’s abilities. “His youngest brother, Cinqué, found himself in the firing line for his poor acting on School Daze,” Aftab writes, before including a quote from Cinqué himself. “I was apprentice editor. I was also an actor, but I got cut because I was terrible,” he said. “The one thing Spike hates is people who don’t know their lines; it’s like sabotage to him. I kept on saying ‘Pee’ instead of ‘Phi.’ Spike made me stand in the corner and face a wall in front of everyone for a couple of minutes. That was my first brutal experience with Spike on a film set.”
According to the book, Spike was ‘bemused’ when Jarmusch not only asked Cinqué to be in Mystery Train, but also in another film of his, Coffee and Cigarettes. Interestingly, when Cinqué was brought back into the fold, it was as a character called ‘Bellhop’ in Lee’s remake of Oldboy. This was basically the same part he’d played for Jarmusch in Mystery Train.
You can understand why Lee might have been a little uptight about his brother’s performance in School Daze. This was just his second film, following the success of his debut feature She’s Gotta Have It. He had to impress, or his career would end before it had truly begun. The rest of the cast included Giancarlo Esposito, Tisha Campbell, and Laurence Fishburne, so any weak links were really going to stand out.
Though not the most difficult shoot of his career, Lee had to get School Daze right, even if it meant upsetting a member of his own family. Luckily, they seem to have made up, although they probably aren’t in any rush to rewatch the movie together.
