When last we saw Don Cheadle, he was spearheading the fight to make Sudan’s ongoing Darfur crisis page-one news around the world with his documentary, “Darfur Now!” As one of the first celebrities to take up Darfur, an African region in an Arab-dominated Islamic nation in which the government is accused of genocide against its African citizens, Cheadle used the documentary to show the world what was happening, and what could be done about it.
For his newest film, “Traitor,” he plays a Sudanese-American who must choose between extremists who practice his faith and the adopted country, the United States, that trained him to build bombs and fight a terror war. We reached Cheadle in New York.
Question:Does “Traitor” reinforce the points you made with your Sudan documentary, that this is a part of the world that we have to pay attention to, or it will breed more misery and terrorism?Answer:To tell you the truth, I didn’t think along those lines when I was setting this up. It has that region, those people, as its backdrop. But for me, “Traitor” is about this guy, Samir Horn, who is trying to balance the many allegiances in his life — Islam, America — and figure out how he can be true to both. Can he do his duty for his country while being a devout Muslim? At some point, he’s going to betray somebody. Who will it be?
Q: The movie goes to some pains to suggest that both the FBI agent pursuing Samir (played by Guy Pearce) and Samir himself realize that there are “many faces to every religion.”A: Exactly. And what we see Samir go through in this film is a form of intra-religion conflict, just as what is going on in Darfur is intra-religion.
Q:Samir is the son of a murdered Sudanese imam who grew up in America, someone who can quote Martin Luther King and the Koran. What, aside from the script, helped you play him?
A: We all had to educate ourselves on Islam and Arabic culture, just to give him background, so that the action surrounding this character felt true. And from there you figure out how to play, moment to moment, Samir’s sense of mystery. How do you let the audience know what he’s thinking and not let the people in the room, in the scene, know? How does that mechanism work? That’s something you figure out with the DP (director of photography). Let the camera be the one who is Samir’s only counsel, the only one who knows what he’s feeling.
Q:“Traitor” is a serious movie for a thriller. Do you think you’re a more serious person since “Hotel Rwanda” and “Darfur Now!” acquainted you with Africa and its problems?A: Wow, I don’t know. This movie, as serious as it is, isn’t “Paradise Now,” a film that really is about the how and why of what’s happening in the Middle East. It’s still, at its heart, a thriller with terrorism as its backdrop.
