ShareThisBy BETSY PICKLE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The names people know best from the years of struggle against apartheid in South Africa are Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko. Actor Derek Luke wants moviegoers to discover a new hero, Patrick Chamusso.
"I love that he's not a Stephen Biko or Nelson Mandela because many of those guys seem unreachable," says Luke. "But when you see an average man that you can relate to, and he goes through this conflict, it's amazing. For me it was. It empowers the individual leader in us all."
Luke, 32, plays Chamusso in "Catch a Fire." In the early 1980s, Chamusso was a foreman at the Secunda Oil Refinery who accepted the injustice of white rule so that he wouldn't lose his job. Taken into custody by security police Col. Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) after an attack on the refinery and tortured by the police, he maintained his innocence until his wife was drawn into the brutality.
Radicalized by his inhumane treatment, Chamusso became a rebel fighter for the military wing of the African National Congress, determined to do his part to end the tyranny of apartheid. But the message of the film isn't about the violence Chamusso at one point embraced, but the forgiveness he was able to muster for those who had wronged him, his family and his country.
"I like the way Patrick takes the power ... as a victim from the oppressor by forgiving," says Luke. "He totally switches power right in the midst of conflict."
Shooting "Catch a Fire" in South Africa proved to be a profound experience for Luke. Part of his research was touring Robben Island Prison, where Mandela and Chamusso were incarcerated.
A former political prisoner "who mirrored Patrick's life" acted as his guide, says the Jersey City, N.J., native. "This man says, 'Derek, I was sentenced to life, and basically these guys couldn't do anything more to me, so if I didn't forgive, then hate would have killed me first.'
"He began to show me ... how they would take real prisoners and mix them in with the political prisoners. And he says, 'Derek, this is the first place where we had to learn forgiveness because they wanted us to fight each other and be mad at each other. But sooner or later we started to turn those violent men into positive thinking.' "
The ex-inmate also took Luke to the cell where Mandela was kept for many years and instructed him to lie down so the 5-foot-11 actor could get a sense of the discomforts the 6-foot-4 Mandela faced.
Recalls Luke: "After whimpering, I say, 'Where's the bathroom?' He says, 'It was that pail over there.' He says, 'The guards would come from time to time to empty it, but it was just based on how they felt. Not only that, that's where he washed his clothes, and that's where they gave him his food.'
"Right at that point, it brought closure to who Patrick was because the next day was the day we started shooting, and from that I felt like I was ready to shoot."
Mandela was released from prison in 1990, and South Africa's first democratic elections open to all races were held in 1994, so the events and emotions of "Catch a Fire" are still close to the surface.
"That's the interesting thing about shooting in a place where the democracy is less than 20 years old," says Luke. "Everybody that's over 30 or 35 really came through the struggle, and they have experienced it."
Since his impressive film debut as the title character in 2002's "Antwone Fisher," Luke has tried to choose his movie roles carefully. He has earned praise for his work in such films as "Pieces of April," "Spartan," "Friday Night Lights" and "Glory Road." He's already getting Oscar buzz for "Catch a Fire."
"We worked really hard on it, and to get any accolades about it, that's humbling," he says.
But most important is what he learned from Chamusso.
"Who knew that this man in South Africa would teach this African-American how to live in a world free from bitterness?" says Luke. "I felt like Patrick was trying to teach not just the South African generation but every generation how to go forward and what not to take into the future."
