To say that Don Cheadle and Adam Sterling are busy men would be the understatement of this very new century. Cheadle, an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe Award-winning actor, has starred in many of the biggest films in recent years: Out of Sight, Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Crash, and Hotel Rwanda, to name a few. Until recently, Adam Sterling was a UCLA graduate student, waiting tables in New York. While these backgrounds are as different as can be, circumstance brought these men to unite under a singular cause – to end the genocide in Darfur.

After Cheadle’s role in 2004’s Hotel Rwanda as the Rwandan Hotel Manager Paul Rusesabagina, who saved hundreds from certain death in the face of genocide, he became sensitized to the issues of genocide. He learned that through efforts to bring attention to the situation in Darfur. After the release of Hotel Rwanda, Cheadle saw his chance to reach people on a personal level.

After being invited to a Congressional delegation, Cheadle and John Prendergast (with whom Cheadle would eventually co-author the book Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur) set out on a mission to get the word out. The result was both a book on the subject, and the documentary Darfur NOW [click here to read review].

The filming of Darfur NOW brought together the paths of Don Cheadle and Adam Sterling. Sterling, while waiting tables in New York, was flying to California on weekends to push for the Golden State to pass legislation in divestment – on his own paycheck. HipHopDX caught up with Don Cheadle and Adam Sterling – two extraordinary individuals who, if you ask them in person, will refuse to admit they’re anything special. You can be the judge of that.

HipHopDX: In the film Darfur NOW, there are six different people —were you guided in telling in your characters, or were you allowed to express what you feel?
Don Cheadle: There was no guiding. We tried to really make sure that we made a documentary, not some sort of narrative that was instructive in any way, shape, or form. The control of the content was more [guided by] what we covered and where we sent the cameras rather than what we did once they were there. It was amazing to see how it unfolded.

All those events happened to happen during that time. Things just happened to show up when you show it. It's a lot different from MTV documentaries, which are definitely guided and written. This one just kind of happened. In my storyline, Adam was happening before we started any filming so things occurred when they did.

DX: Was there danger involved throughout the filming?
DC: Absolutely. There's a great moment in the movie where Recalde is driving, and they pan the camera over to the soldiers. We were surprised that they allowed a crew in there, knowing what was happening, knowing what our perspective was. We kept calling Ted and saying, "They know what you're doing, right? There's full disclosure, right?" And he said, "Yes, I keep telling them this is what we're making a movie about." And they kept saying, good keep coming. It doesn’t matter.

Adam Sterling: I wanted guidance, but they wouldn't give it to me. This was all new to me. I remember the first couple of days when I first met Ted [Braun], I was in Southern California, waiting tables, working five days a week, and then on Mondays and Tuesdays I would fly up to Sacramento to go lobby. And I was just telling Ted, you should go meet this person and this person, and was telling him my story. In the meantime, he called me one day and he said, "Hey, we're going to film you a little bit and see how it goes." I said, "Okay but I'm going to work tomorrow." And he said, "I'll call you." I felt awkward, because I had never done that. And I was asking questions and they said, "No, you can't ask questions, be normal." [Laughs] And so I learned quickly that there was not going to be any guidance, but just free rein.

DX: Did you give any pointers to anyone like Adam about being on camera?
DC: Yeah... cover for me. [Laughs] No, no, I didn't. In real life, if you try to look good on camera, you look like an idiot. At least with the script, you have some sort of cover, you're trying to play somebody else. But trying to play you, with some polish, you're going to look like an idiot. We tried to just be, and really allow to come through who we were and what we were trying to do. None of us are extraordinary people and that's the whole point of this film--that we're not extraordinary people. We are people who are just moved by something and have become passionate about something that we really think is the greatest humanitarian crisis on the face of the earth today. And in that effort, we are hoping that the result can be extraordinary. But I don't think that any of us looked at ourselves and thought we were special.

DX: One point in fact has been that in a way, one thing that’s special in your “un-specialness” about getting involved in this. You've become so knowledgeable and an expert by your passion and drive. Do you look back and say: "God, how do I know all this shit?"
DC: Definitely. I always tell people, when they ask, I say I was pulled into a stream that was already flowing. It was already moving, and Adam pulled me in. And John Prendergast pulled me in. And Congressman Ed Royce pulled me in. These were people that were already trying to do things in this effort, and I said well, give my light to to the sum of light and try to make it happen. Because I, too, think that that's what we need to be doing. Continued on page 2 »