20 Questions: Wesley Snipes

Wesley Snipes has been drug overlord Nino Brown in "New Jack City," baseball rookie Willie Mays Hayes in "Major League," transracial lover Flipper Purify in "Jungle Fever" and hard-boiled lawenforcement types in "Passenger 57" and "Boiling Point." In all of these, Snipes seems to engage the audience thoroughly in his make-believe. And there's more to come in "Rising Sun," with Sean Cannery, and in the futuristic "Demolition Man," with Sylvester Stallone. Snipes would argue that his success is consistent with his staying close to his African-American roots, his adherence to Islam and his willingness to try anything. Contributing Editor David Rensin reports: "After a screening of 'New Jack City,' Warner executives learned that although audiences were supposed to hate Snipes' ruthless, drug-dealing character, they were sympathetic instead. The story goes that the execs met to determine why. I asked Snipes about it. 'They won't even admit to having the meeting,' he said, laughing. 'But they must have figured out something. They just offered me a three-picture deal.'"

1.

[Q] Playboy: White men have been targets of feminists because of insensitivity. On the other hand, black men seem to get away with calling women "bitches." How does that square with the feminist sisters? Are you feeling the heat?

[A] Snipes: It stays out there because it sells rap records. But it doesn't go over at all with self-respecting black women. There's always been a weird thing about our culture, where we convince ourselves that the derogatory names we call one another are all right. Walking around calling one another nigger is like battery. Accepting it is like trying to find a little peace with it. We concede it's good even though we had no control over designing it from the giddyup. But we'll do the best we can. "What's up, nigger? Wha's up, motherfucker?"

2.

[Q] Playboy: In White Men Can't Jump, Woody Harrelson's character is better than yours at shooting hoops. At what can you kick his butt in real life?

[A] Snipes: Basketball. [Laughs] Every time we played one-on-one, I won. But he can whip me at surfing.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Woody has a reputation as a ladies' man. Can you beat that?

[A] Snipes: [Laughs] I wish I could understand how he says certain things to women. He can be in a relationship with two or three women, and all of them know one another and all are very comfortable with the fact that this is going on. I don't understand that. I think it's a cultural thing. Maybe white and Asian women can handle it, but sisters do not go for it. It's impossible, unless you're a pimp.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Care to share any Wesleyan sex secrets?

[A] Snipes: Physical prowess is a spiritual rhythm, a harmony. There's a rhythm to making love, a unification of breathing. Asians are into how to heal through breathing and sex, how different positions are better for the heart, the lungs. When you submit to the rhythms of nature, everything else falls into place.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Do blacks and whites live in different sexual cultures?

[A] Snipes: [Laughs] Black women know the power of the booty. To a black man, the white woman is forbidden fruit. Sacred fruit. And white women are more understanding of a man in many situations. They fish. They bait the hook, pull him in, let him run, pull him in. They don't have a problem with sexuality. They figure, "Hey, if I have to give up a little trim, to keep him around, I'll give up the trim. I want him to come back." Sisters are different. They figure, "No, no, no. The last thing I'll do is give up the trim. I'm going to hold on to this. I'm gonna find out everything about you and see if you deserve any of my trim."

6.

[Q] Playboy: In New Jack City, Ice-T nursing Chris Rock to recovery may not be one of the magic moments in black cinema. Should rappers do what they do best and cross back over?

[A] Snipes: It's not fair for me to say that because you're a rapper you shouldn't have other ambitions. But I question directors and producers who hire these people. Are they looking for quality work or commercial value? They figure rap is so popular that putting a rapper in a movie will make money. It doesn't work like that. Look at the film Ice-T and Ice Cube were in, Trespass. It was terrible. They're my boys, but I had to tell them, "Yo, you should be whacked." There was nothing on the screen, no substance in the characters. They did totally ridiculous stuff. No one's going to go for that--and they haven't--even with rappers in it.

7.

[Q] Playboy: In Demolition Man you play someone who has been in suspended animation. What real-life moment would you want to be your last before you went into deep freeze?

[A] Snipes: Some type of affair where all my best friends and a woman I'm really, really into are there. We have a nice barbecue and talk and have sex. Then, boom, I'm checkin' out. And when I wake up, a couple of those people are still around. Especially the woman.

8.

[Q] Playboy: What can every man learn from some of your co-stars: Sean Connery, Christopher Walken and Denzel Washington?

[A] Snipes: Sean: How to be suave and debonair. Chris: Freedom. He may be trapped in his own thing, but the exudes freedom. Even in the way he words things. He's like Thelonious Monk was with chord changes. Sean is refined. Chris is the opposite. Denzel: A sense of balance. He's learned to balance his popularity with his family life. He still hangs out with the fellas, but he can hobnob with the hotshots.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Who would you stop on the street just to meet?

[A] Snipes: Rutger Hauer. I dig him so much. He's so intense. He always has that look that's a cross between a nice guy and a maniac. My favorite Hauer film is--no question--The Hitcher. The scene that did it for me is where he's sitting in the truck cab and Jennifer Jason Leigh is tied between the cab and the body. Sweat is dripping off his face. His look is like, "You guys just don't understand. You think this is a joke. It's no joke." And then the motherfucker drives off and rips her in half. I went berserk!

10.

[Q] Playboy: Which of your many characters actually seduced you and made it tough for you to become Wesley when the camera was off?

[A] Snipes: My character in King of New York. He'd reached the breaking point. It also could have been the way things were going in my life at the time, but I was always very aggressive and very tense. I found myself taking my tension home. I stayed in New York for two weeks after we finished shooting, then I got the hell out of there and went down to Florida.

I suppose most people would like to think I was seduced by Nino Brown in New Jack City, but I was in control of him. He never got into me. Some women I was involved with at the time who saw the character on the set would assume that I was doing a Nino Brown thing. "You're doing your Nino imitation." I'd say, "No, I just happen to feel he same way he'd feel." This is one of the hazards of the business. Right off the bat no one believes you. If you're developing a relationship with the opposite sex, they automatically assume everything you do is an act. "How many women have you said this to? You're such a great actor, you could be acting right now."

11.

[Q] Playboy: What is the worst thing a woman could do on a date besides try to get a job?

[A] Snipes: Come up to the house at three or four in the morning, kiss, hug and make out and then decide, "No, I don't think this is right. I'm not that kind of girl." Well, that kind of girl wouldn't have come up in the first place. I don't hide where my head is at. So if I'm kissing you and trying to stick my hands all over you and I'm clawing you, it's a pretty good indicator that I might be interested in having some.

12.

[Q] Playboy: When you cook to impress, what's the most impressive thing that you cook?

[A] Snipes: Breakfast. Nice red potatoes--boil them up a bit, then put them in the frying pan so they're crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Eggs, with onions and stuff. English muffins. Turkey bacon. Maybe a banana pancake on the side if I'm really trying to get in the drawers. [Laughs] That's a joke, man. Otherwise, people will say, "That's the way he does it."

13.

[Q] Playboy: When was the last time you said "If only I were white"?

[A] Snipes: When the cops had me pinned up against the car for something I didn't do. Unfortunately, nothing conditions white cops to respect all human beings. When cops are on the gun range, they shoot at a black silhouette on white paper. They train on it every day. They're conditioned. Black spot. Gotta hit it.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Would your career have been any different if you were white?

[A] Snipes: [Clears throat] I'd be so wealthy it'd be ridiculous. Look at the white actors who have a little more rhythm about them, a bit more soul. Mel Gibson, Sean Connery, Bruce Willis. Bruce is a perfect example. His whole modus operandi is black. He grooves with it. He loves the blues. He talks rhythmically. He's very relaxed and cool. And people love him. So to be white with my energies and flavors and nuances and character would be awesome. I'd own this magazine by now.

15.

[Q] Playboy: You have a four-year-old son. If you were to educate him about being black in America, and you could do it only through the movies, which movies would you show him?

[A] Snipes: Birth of a Nation, Sparkle, The Jesse Owens Story, Malcolm X, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Cabin in the Sky, Boyz N the Hood, New Jack City, Grand Canyon.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a role or a film you're dying to do that Hollywood will never be prepared to offer you?

[A] Snipes: Yeah, a remake of Cleopatra or The Ten Commandments and let me play Mark Antony or Moses. No way it will ever happen. We'd be messing with icons. We'd also be tampering with the comfortable myth that Moses actually looked like Charlton Heston.

17.

[Q] Playboy: You converted to Islam. Did Malcolm X ring true for you?

[A] Snipes: There were some pretty strong realities, but I think the movie was sort of a compilation of the best and most popular articles about Malcolm. Many more things that were poignant took place that didn't make it in. There was a small scene in the film where they talk a guy through withdrawal. But they never say how the Muslims snatched cast off 125th Street, guys leaning over with drool from their mouths to their feet. They'd put them in a room and read the Koran to them and detox them. Feed them herbs and beans--healing foods. That would have been a hell of a scene because the Muslims have been the most successful at converting hardened criminals and drug addicts into decent men with a spiritual base. That's something you have to respect.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Early in your career you did commercials for Western Union, Coca-Cola and Levi's, among others. What couldn't you sell on TV?

[A] Snipes: The Just Say No campaign. Asking people to say no--people who are disillusioned with their lives, who lack self-confidence--is a farce. Kids can tell hypocrisy when they see it. The solution is about self-respect. The more you have, the less likely you'll try to escape.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You used to install telephones for a living. Any old phone-company secrets you'd like to share with us?

[A] Snipes: In New York, you can find your telephone number if you dial 958. There's another code you use to find out the number of someone who has just called you. The best secret is that the phone company increases the voltage through the lines every couple weeks, just shoots this energy through. And most phones that you buy on the cheap or at an electronics store can't handle it. All of a sudden your phone goes out and you're forced to buy one that the big boys manufacture.

20.

[Q] Playboy: You went blond for Demolition Man. Do blonds have more fun?

[A] Snipes: It all depends on how many brunettes are around.

Hollywood's premiere black action hero schools us on racism, artistic opportunity and trim